


Wrapped Around Your Finger

by MojoFlower



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Ambiguous Relationships, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Breathplay, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Eventual Happy Ending, Facials, Fingerfucking, Fingering, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Feeding, Happy Ending, In a way, Johnlock Roulette, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Morroco at the turn of the century, Older!John, PWP, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Seduction, Service Dom, Service Top, Songfic, Student!Sherlock, Teabagging, Teacher-Student Relationship, Teenlock, Topping from the Bottom, Virgin!Sherlock, and Sherlock has a lot to learn, and there are many orgasms along the way, because John has a lot to teach, gray!John, manipulative!John, mild abuse of power, no research whatsoever, seduced innocence, teen!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:15:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MojoFlower/pseuds/MojoFlower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Virgin!Sherlock, 18 and just out of school, is in Morocco in the early 1900's to learn about the ways of the world.  Dr. John Watson, lately of the British Army and invalided out at age of 36, picks him up in the market place.  Lessons (you know what kind) are taught and absorbed.  Inspired by the song <em>Wrapped Around Your Finger by The Police</em>.  I'd say PWP, except there's a soupçon of plot, given that it's a story worked around the lyrics of the song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seeking Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> ***The setting of this story is based on me having misheard a line of this song for my _ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE_ , until I just now looked up the lyrics.  The line I _heard_ was _“Hid in the casbah, you with passion linger”_.  The actual line is, _“Hypnotized by you if I should linger.”_  I actually like my version better. Here are the lyrics and music to [Wrapped Around Your Finger](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tzrq7p2em3xenlvuiv5pycfvqja?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics), if you need a refresher.
> 
> ***John is a bit morally gray in the beginning of this story. He takes distinct advantage of someone much younger than he (Sherlock is 18, and John is in his mid 30s), and the consent is a bit blurry. I'm just saying. But, hey, it's PWP, more or less. In spite of my best efforts, a happy ending will be had by all. Enjoy the journey!
> 
> ***Beta'd by the ever-patient and wise [snogandagrope](../../users/snogandagrope/pseuds/snogandagrope) and [scienceofobsession](../../users/scienceofobsession/pseuds/scienceofobsession).
> 
> ***[Batik](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Batik/pseuds/Batik) found these two lovely photos, and they fit perfectly.  So.  Enjoy your visuals, and thanks Batik!!

“I’ll be back for you in mid-September, as I said, Sherlock.  Surely you aren’t worried about being on your own?  I’d thought more of you, I really had.”

Sherlock’s back straightened even more, and he glared at his older brother, hackles lifted at the condescension in his voice.  “Of course not,” he replied disdainfully, voice a rich rumble.  When his voice had finally changed, quite late and after an eternity of embarrassing squeaks and cracks, it had turned out to be much deeper than Mycroft’s, a fact that Sherlock wielded clumsily, like a blunt weapon, desperate to showcase any point of potential superiority.  Mycroft, who still had a few centimeters of height on his little brother, and seven years that Sherlock could never surpass, simply raised an eyebrow and scooped his umbrella from the corner of the settee.

“Leave a message with the concierge if you should need me, Brother.  He’ll know how to reach me if he must.”

Sherlock acknowledged that with the merest wince, and then swung around, wanting to be the first to leave the room.  To prove his independence.  “I’ll no doubt be around in September,” he tossed back, and then left.  He thought he heard a long-suffering sigh behind him, and definitely heard, “Take care, Little Brother,” but he did not turn back around.

 

***

 

He sloped away to the Kasbah District as soon as he could, perching a white straw hat atop his black curls and further unbuttoning his shirt… a fully indecent 3 buttons agape now.  He was quite, _quite_ scandalous.  His loose linen blazer he left open, and his slim-cut trousers were tucked into tall leather boots (which Mycroft called pretentious and immature:  Sherlock ignored that input with his carefully developed selective hearing.)  He eschewed the umbrella and walking stick that most of the Englishmen around him flaunted.  Both for their impracticality and because he wanted to be as little like Mycroft as was possible.  

He’d been here for a week with Mycroft, and had already learned the streets and markets near their hotel, had learned to identify his location by the unique prayer calls of the of the muezzin in the different mosque minarets around the city, sung five times each day.  They were calling now, the eerie and beautiful tune warbling up and down minor keys, voices meeting and blending over squalid streets and broad, landscaped boulevards both.  Sherlock didn’t have to be fluent to be able to translate,

_Allah is Most Great,_

_Allah is Most Great,_

_I bear witness that there is none_

_worthy of being worshiped_

_except Allah,_ *,

Sherlock _loved_ it.  Marrakech in 1910 was filled with life, with colors, with exoticism.  It made him feel daring and he _expanded_ to fill the space that was everywhere here.  He had finished Cambridge quite young, he had only just turned 18, and Mycroft had brought him here while he took care of government business all around North Africa.  

Sherlock was to stay in Marrakech and broaden his horizons before returning to England to find a career compatible with his noble heritage and his study in the sciences and mathematics.

Boys usually did such tours in a gaggle, egging one another along to slink into whorehouses across Europe and the Middle East, staggering from beer gardens to formal dances.  But Sherlock was supremely uninterested in joining such a crew.  Even if he had been invited.  Which he had not.  That did not hurt him at all, of course.  The boys (all older than he by several years) at Cambridge had made his life rather miserable when they had deigned to speak with him at all.  Sherlock was happy to be alone.

He poked through the stalls in the market, letting the sounds and smells and sights, the energy, the ceaseless bustle around him fill his senses.  His eyes darted from one person to the next, analyzing their behaviors, noting their purchases and deducing why they would need such items.  There was a woman who was laden with incense and oils, with kohl and ochre, who clearly was a higher servant in a brothel catering to the British expats littering the city.  There was an elderly gentleman, with three generations of offspring supporting him, smiling and happy to be out, black eyes bright under his turban.  There were two giggling young women with a maid, white and obtrusive, picking through cheap bangles.

“You!  Boy!”

Sherlock turned around, surprised to be addressed.  A man stood behind him, older than he by fifteen years or more, face gently weathered, open and friendly.  He was small, dapper, hair oiled down and waistcoat buttoned smartly up to his neck.  His eyes were an amazing, deep cobalt blue, and his bright teeth gleamed in his smile.  

“You are addressing me, sir?” Sherlock asked in surprise, forgetting to be haughty.

“So I appear to be, don’t I?”  The man smiled again.  “I’ve seen you here for days, wandering about.  You seem rather at loose ends, and companionless in addition.”

Sherlock frowned a bit.  He had not seen this man before.  Although... he _was_ quite short, a good 6 inches less than Sherlock’s own height:  perhaps he had been hidden in the crowds.  In spite of his stature, he had a certain presence, one that Sherlock found himself drawn to.  The man continued to smile up at him, calm and confident, hands folded behind his back.

Military, Sherlock deduced from his stature.  A captain, at the least.  A cane dangled from one hand, and the tip was worn enough for Sherlock to ascertain that it was used for necessity, not the whims of fashion.  The man held one shoulder slightly higher than the other, and Sherlock’s eyes darted from his head to his toes.  Lamed in battle, he would wager.  And invalided because of it.  But not willing to leave the life and freedom of Northern Africa for the cold, foggy climes of the homeland.

The man let Sherlock look his fill, serene and smiling all the while.  He eventually brought his hands around front, clasping them together over the head of his cane.  Sherlock’s eyes picked up the flash of gold, and noticed a wedding band on the man’s left ring finger.

“Finished browsing, yet?” the man asked.  “I’ve something to ask of you, if you’ve no other demands on your time.”

Sherlock gave his head a slight shake, he had almost lost himself in observing this small man.  “Ah.  Er.  Yes, sir.”  He looked at the stall behind the man.  The merchant there watched them curiously, hands balancing two large, decorative clay urns on his table.  “I deduce that you wish me to play dray-horse for those urns?”

The man looked pleased, and his smile widened.  “You’re quite clever, aren’t you?  I thought you must be.  I am Dr. John Watson, compatriot, obviously.  And you?”  He held out his hand, and Sherlock took it in his own, wrapping his pale fingers around tanned skin.  Dr. Watson’s grip was firm, and he shook Sherlock’s hand briskly, and continued holding it, bringing the other up to encase it in both his own.

Sherlock stared down at their linked hands, surprised but not objecting.  “Sherlock.  Sherlock Holmes.”

“You’re rather young to be out on your own, here, Sherlock.  Do you have family or friends nearby?”

“No, sir.  My brother left this morning on business, he won’t be back for several months.”  Sherlock paused briefly.  “I’m eighteen, sir.  Not so very young.”

“No,” said Dr. Watson, and his voice was considering and intimate.  His thumb stroked along the delicate bones in the back of Sherlock’s hand, and a rough callus (from handling a gun, Sherlock’s brain supplied) scratched across smooth skin.  “No, indeed.  Not too young.  Now.  If you’ve the time, would you object to being, as you say, dray horse for the afternoon?  I’ll happily ply you with luncheon and tea in thanks.”

Sherlock took a deep breath.  There was clearly more in the offer than tea.  What should he do?  He was here to learn the ways of the world, after all, seeking knowledge not taught at Cambridge.  “Not at all, sir,” he said.

Dr. Watson directed him to the stall, where Sherlock hoisted one urn over each shoulder.  His hat was knocked off, and Dr. Watson smilingly picked it up, tucking it under one elbow.  “Follow me, then,” he said.  And Sherlock did.

They reached an automobile soon thereafter, parked in the shaded terrace of a nearby hotel.  Dr. Watson directed Sherlock to place the urns in the trunk, where he wrapped them carefully up in two blankets as Dr. Watson looked on.  Afterward, he was gestured to the passenger seat, while the older man cranked the car until it was running, noisily belching black smoke before settling down into a loud, mechanical purr.

Sherlock held his straw hat on his head as the wind of their passage threatened to blow it off.  He was grateful for the windshield, which protected him from some of the dust floating above the road.  The fabric roof of the auto, however, was tucked away, and they were exposed to the sun and the heat.  Sherlock glanced cross-eyed at his nose:  his fair, nearly translucent skin beginning to pinken, even in the reflected light of the sun.  A sideways glance showed that Dr. Watson was much less particular about his own complexion.  His skin was gold, marking him as a long-term expat, tan and warm and worn... and infinitely fascinating.  He reclined in the driver’s seat, one hand casually holding the steering wheel, compensating for the jolts and turns the rutted road imposed on the car.  His other arm he stretched out along the seat back, his sleeve brushing against Sherlock’s neck, invasive, feeling as rough as burlap, in spite of the fine linen it actually was.

Another bump, and Dr. Watson’s hand twitched, landing thumb-first in Sherlock’s collar.  Sherlock sat very still, clasping his hat to his head, other hand clenched around his own thigh.  He focused intently on the sensation of that rough thumb, edging inside his collar, scraping along the tender skin of his long neck.  Chills that were at odds with the dry heat of the day roughened his skin, sharpened his sensitivity, spread from Dr. Watson’s invasive digit across his shoulders, across his scalp, across his lean chest, tightening his nipples, tickling the seat of his desire until the blood rushed will-he nil-he into his cock.

Dr. Watson glanced surreptitiously down, and then stared back at the roadway, mouth curved in a good-natured smirk.  His wandering thumb slid back upwards, stirring the sweat-dampened hair at Sherlock’s nape, and his fingers came into play as well, curling around the slender circumference of Sherlock’s neck, brushing up under his ear and then wandering down until they found and probed the hollow created by his collarbone and shoulder.  Sherlock leaned back a bit, pressing himself into that warm, confident hand, eyes firmly on his lap, desperately trying to quell his semi-turgid state.

But he was 18, and that was rather a lost cause.

Dr. Watson’s hand combed through his hair again, knocking his hat awry, and Sherlock took it off, holding it over his lap to conceal his interest, although he knew that Dr. Watson was fully aware of it.  The small hand of the man at the wheel crept around the point of his jaw, tracing the long bone of it until it swooped up to the corner of his mouth on the far side, toying with his lip, tapping at the crease where his mouth hinged until it opened under that insistent tutelage.

Sherlock allowed the dry finger ingress, feeling relaxed and shy and uncertain and excited all at once.  He turned his head slightly, gratefully, because it meant he was facing away from Dr. Watson’s knowing eyes.  The finger probed his mouth, curving around the stretched skin of his lip to explore the soft tissue of his inner cheek, the hard ridges of his teeth.  

Companion fingers wrapped under his jaw, nudging upwards to close his mouth more, and Dr. Watson leaned over a bit to say, “Can you suck, Sherlock?”  His tone was nonchalant, his voice a soft, safe tenor, and Sherlock was at a loss to explain his shiver, an animal recognition of being hunted, trapped, a checkmated sensation.  He shut his eyes against the wind and slowly applied light suction, touching calloused skin with his tongue, learning the texture and flavor offered there.

Dr. Watson groaned audibly, and Sherlock felt bolstered,  He sucked again, hollowing his cheeks around the small digit, and another pushed its way in, to lie alongside the first.  He tongued them both, staring through barely opened eyes at the dirt stretching out on the side of the road, flying past.

Dr. Watson drove skillfully past horses, pedestrians, laden market carts and donkeys, the dogs and goats and cats and children which dodged back and forth across the road.  Dark, curious eyes traced the passage of the automobile, which were still uncommon in the city, and Sherlock felt titillatingly exposed, with the older man’s fingers in his mouth.  But he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, and his penis grew fully hard under the concealment of his hat.

Near the outskirts of the city, close to the Bab Agnaou Gate, Dr. Watson drove into a large courtyard, shaded with palm and date trees.  He retrieved his hand, leaving a damp patch at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, and turned to smile at him.

“Here we are… Sherlock.  My home.”  John exited the car, leaning slightly on his cane as he did so.  He nodded to the back.  “If you’ll grab the urns, I’ll show you inside.  My wife and staff are gone, for the nonce, so it’ll just be you and me.”

Sherlock moved as if in a dream, dazed and aroused;  simultaneously detached from and utterly drenched in his own body, thrumming with expectation.  “Yes, sir,” was all he said, eyes fixed on Dr. Watson’s chin, on the lines of his throat rather than his sharp, knowing eyes.  He leaned into the back and pulled both urns out, one on each shoulder as he had before.  He stood waiting, but Dr. Watson did not move, merely stood in front of him, staring.

The heat was stifling, even in the shaded courtyard, and Sherlock felt beads of sweat trickle down his chest, his back, dampening his shirt to his shoulderblades, his curls to his forehead.  There was a breathless, unoxygenated feel to the air, and Sherlock found he could do nothing more than wait for Dr. Watson’s orders.  The older man stepped closer, and put a hand firmly, directly on the center of Sherlock’s chest, positioned between his nipples, bearing down on his sternum.

“You’re rather hot, aren’t you?” he murmured.  “Must take care for heat stroke.  I can see that you’re not yet acclimated to Morocco.”  Blunt fingers slowly opened a button, revealing sparse black hairs matted to skin with a sheen of sweat.  Sherlock drew in a sharp breath, but said nothing.  “As it’s only the two of us here, we needn’t be formal, Sherlock.  Not necessary to stand on ceremony.”  Dr. Watson sent a smiling look up at him, and busy fingers unbuttoned two more buttons, so that Sherlock’s white shirt was opened to just above his navel.  Dr. Watson blew against his skin, and the moving air was a cool relief that caused chill bumps to rise, which Dr. Watson then caressed away with the palms of his hands.

Sherlock stood still, balancing the heavy urns on his shoulders, unable to use his hands or arms, and watched helplessly as Dr. Watson worked his shirt free of his trousers and smoothed it aside with his palms, soft and hot on Sherlock’s skin, moving from his center across his pectorals, rubbing firmly over nipples taut with anticipation.  Sherlock couldn’t prevent the hiss of his breath, the shiver of his skin, as the motion sent an echo of sensation down to his cock.  His body leaned forward without his volition, crowding into Dr. Watson’s hands.

Dr. Watson smiled again, pleased and satisfied with Sherlock’s reaction.  He plucked at Sherlock’s nipples, thumbing them, pushing down in tiny circles.  Sherlock’s breath was short, choppy, panting.  He clutched at the balanced urns upon his shoulders, penned by duty, when Dr. Watson finally dragged his hands down lean flanks, fingers pressing into Sherlock’s lower back while both thumbs dug into the hollows of his hipbones, having slid behind the belt and fabric of his trousers.

Impishly, Dr. Watson stepped back, grinning and licking his lips.  “That’s better, isn’t it?  Come with me, and I’ll find a cool drink for you as well.”

Sherlock followed, swimming through the haloed light of the afternoon, eyes so blown with passion and trepidation that it was hard to see.  They entered a darkened foyer, which seemed almost pitch black for the few moments it took Sherlock’s eyes to adjust.  Dr. Watson took off his own jacket, and unbuttoned and divested himself of his waistcoat as well, sliding off his tie and popping free several buttons of his shirt.  He folded the lot neatly on a trunk near the door and then beckoned to Sherlock.  “Set those on either side of the stairs, if you don’t mind.”

Sherlock nodded and rolled his shoulders, allowing the urns to slide down into his arms.  He set each one next to a rail of the stairs, and felt the doctor’s eyes on his every move as he did so.  He’d positioned himself behind Sherlock when he’d straightened up, and small hands were again on his body, shoving his jacket and shirt over his shoulders, slipping them off his arms.

“There,” Dr. Watson said breathlessly, licking his lips again.  “Now we’re relaxed.”  Dark eyes devoured Sherlock, standing naked from the waist up in an unfamiliar foyer.  “You’re a handsome one, aren’t you?”  The tongue again, snaking across thin, mobile lips.  A hand came to rest on his belly, fingers combing through the dark arrow of hair leading under his trousers.  “Are you thirsty?  Hungry?”

Sherlock felt hunger and thirst, but he didn’t think it was for comestibles.  His lips parted, and felt himself drawn towards the smaller form, curling around the aura of the older man:  it was so strong, so assured, so deeply, unabashedly sensual.  And, rather… forceful.

“I think you should call me John,” he continued, holding Sherlock's narrow torso firmly between his two hands.

“All right,” Sherlock acquiesced.  “John.  And, you can call me Sherlock.”

John grinned at him, tolerant, and Sherlock immediately realized what a stupid thing he’d just said.  John had been calling him Sherlock since they met in the market.  He felt color flooding his face, treacherous fair skin revealing more about his discomfort than he would like.  “I will, then, thank you,” John murmured, still smiling.

He pulled Sherlock closer, until they were only inches apart.  “You’re rather inexperienced, aren’t you?”  He leaned in until his lips were pressed to Sherlock’s damp shoulder.  “Have you ever been with a man?”

Sherlock felt hot tongue, sharp teeth against his collarbone, and his knees went weak.  He made a small, low sound, and Dr. Watson… John, chuckled warmly against his skin.  “Had a woman, then?”  Sherlock shook his head, and John made a growling noise, closing his mouth around the ridge of his clavicle and sucking, brief and hard, so that Sherlock shook and thrust his pelvis forward, unexpectedly and without warning.

John grabbed his hips and held them still, barely brushing against John’s abdomen.  “Shh,” he said.  “There will be time for that later.”  He licked up along Sherlock’s neck, leaning forward, supporting his weight on Sherlock’s hips, and nipped at his jaw.  “Come with me.”

“Yes, sir,” was all Sherlock felt capable of saying.  His whole body was throbbing with each pulse of his heart, and no amount of breathing was getting sufficient air into his lungs.  He followed John down a short hall, through another, enclosed courtyard, and then into a small, brightly lit salon.  White and blue tiles swirled in fractal-like patterns on the floors and halfway up the stuccoed walls, and two long, wide sofas, practically beds, were situated on either side of a brightly painted coffee table.

John gave Sherlock a little push towards one of the sofas, and he obediently sat, facing out into the courtyard, scooting two of the many pillows to support his back.  John smiled down at him, eyes heavy and hot.  “I’ll get drinks,” he said quietly.  “You may make yourself comfortable.  Feel free to bare your feet.  If you need the washroom, it’s beyond that yellow door over there.”  He nodded to the left, and Sherlock could see a marigold-painted door, covered with wrought iron detail, half hidden behind the spiny leaves of a giant potted palm.

Sherlock did use the facilities, splashing his face, neck and hands with cool water from the sink and patting himself dry with a rough towel on a hook nearby.  When he returned to the salon, John was already there, and two lemonades were sweating on the little table.  Sherlock swiped at an errant drop of water and moved to sit, changing his trajectory when John indicted a cushion on the floor next to his feet.  “Sit here instead,” he said reasonably.  “It’s cooler on the floor.”

Sherlock sat at John’s feet, thrumming with anticipation, gracefully disposing himself on the cushion, but edgy with nerves.  He reached for the lemonade with a hand that subtly shook, and held it tightly between both his clammy palms.  He heard John swallow, above him, behind him, and the other glass passed over his head to click down onto the table.  John’s hands, cooler now from the beverage, came to rest on his shoulders.  Sherlock sat still, clutching his glass.

“You’re very strong,” John murmured, hands caressing the rounded joints of his shoulders, feeling their way down to explore the delineations of his biceps, the rounded bulge of muscle there.  “I’m sorry you didn’t carry those heavy urns like this, shirtless and beautiful, instead of all swaddled in linen as you were.  I should like to have seen it.”

Sherlock couldn’t help but flex under those impressed hands, and John hummed thoughtfully behind him.  “You like this?  Touching?”  He smoothed his hands across Sherlock’s chest, cupping leanly cut pectorals, fingers toying with both pink nipples until Sherlock could feel a flush sink from his face through his chest.  He bent his head, hoping John wouldn’t notice.  No one had touched him like this.  Ever.  He gave a faint nod.

John leaned forward for another sip, and when he sat back again, he shifted one leg so that it was on Sherlock’s other side, enclosing him between John’s thighs.  The hands were back, surgeon's hands, he realized, well-versed in human anatomy.  Well versed, evidently, in human pleasure.  The prodded and pulled and pressed at his skin and muscles, stroking him into compliancy, until the room was a haze, and his body was warm not with the heat of the late afternoon, but with desire and longing... for something.  Something he could only name in an academic sense.

John guided Sherlock’s head back, lax now, until the weight of it was supported on his palm.  Sherlock opened dazed eyes and stared into the round, dark eyes above his own.  “I’m going to kiss you, now,” John said.

Sherlock licked his lips and nodded.  He hadn’t kissed before, either.  It was obviously to be a day of firsts, and he thrilled to it.  John fell further forward, and hard lips were against his own, mobile, insistent.  Fingers probed into the points of his jaw, the hollows of his cheek, and Sherlock followed the silent instruction to yield, to open his lips.  John’s tongue was immediately inside, licking into the heat of his own mouth as if the lemonade had not been enough.

John gave a growling sigh and swirled Sherlock’s tongue up with his own, sucking it relentlessly, until Sherlock arched himself backwards, straining up towards John, eyes tightly shut.  He was clutching at John’s wrists with kneading fingers, little sounds escaping him:  pleasure and need and uncertainty and desperation.  He licked back, sloppy and inexperienced and hesitant, but John grunted his approval, bent Sherlock into more of an arc, stretching his spine, one hand closing around the front of his neck in a gesture that was both dominant and faintly terrifying, so close to cutting off Sherlock’s air.

And that made Sherlock whine, pushing himself towards John with his boots slipping on the floor until they crashed up against the leg of the table, and his hips rolled forward seeking contact.

“Turn around.”  John’s voice was rough, and when Sherlock opened his eyes, he noted that John’s face was flushed, his mouth shiny and swollen with their kisses, eyes blown black with fervency.  Sherlock scrambled to scoop his legs under him, rolling to his knees on the cushion and facing John.  Kneeling between spread legs.  Oh.  God.

John unbuttoned his own shirt, revealing a tanned, well-muscled chest liberally sprinkled with gold and grey hairs.  When he shrugged out of it, Sherlock’s eyes immediately fixed on a reddened patch of scar tissue on his left shoulder, still angry and raised.  “Frontier skirmish in Egypt,” John said.  “Last summer.”  He dropped his shirt onto the floor and then moved his hands to his belt, keeping eye contact with Sherlock all the while.  “All right?” he asked.

Sherlock would liked to have taken a bit of a break and pursued the story of the gunshot wound, but it seemed this was not the time.  The pressure of his cock, trapped against his thigh in his tightly fitted trousers, agreed with the straightforward approach John was taking.  He took a deep breath and nodded.  “I’m fine, sir,” he asserted, although his voice was not as strong as he would have liked.

John flipped his belt through the metal buckle and unbuttoned his trousers, five buttons in all.  Sherlock could see the stretched bulge of his cock, fully hard behind the fabric of his pants.  John leaned back, stretching both arms along the pillows piled behind him.  “Go on, then,” he challenged.  “Take it out.  Show me what you can do.”

Sherlock didn’t understand the challenge, as he had never indicated in any way that he had sexual prowess or experience.  But if John was not going to let that stop him, then neither was Sherlock.  He pretended to be confident, and folded back the flies of John’s trousers, brushing his knuckles along the length of the hidden erection.  John hissed, and lifted his eyes to the ceiling, both hands closing into fists in the pillows along the sofa.  “Yes.”

Sherlock rubbed again, surprised at how hard John felt under the soft cotton, the satisfying girth, the heave and jump as his penis twitched under his fingers.  John’s head dropped back for a moment, and Sherlock took the opportunity to find skin, brushing against the silken head of John’s cock, finger slipping through a hot bead of pre-ejaculate.

John groaned and pushed into Sherlock’s hand.  “More.  Do it.  Use your mouth.”

Sherlock suffered a frisson of excitement and then carefully tugged the pants down, until he could hook them under John’s furred bollocks, lighter and more delicate than his own.  The shaft nearly under his nose was deep red, halfway out of the protective collar of silvery foreskin, glistening with fluid on the tip.  It lurched toward his mouth when he exhaled, salivated, and John’s hands snapped inwards to grab him.  “Do it,” he said again.

Sherlock leaned forward and cautiously licked from the base to the head, a dainty stripe, scarcely wet.  He imbibed John’s flavor more from smell than actual taste, on that first go, and John moaned under his mouth, hands propelling his shoulders in until he was close to being mashed into John’s abdomen.  “More.  Wetter.”

Sherlock kept his eyes open, reading signs from John’s body and his genitals.  He licked again, this time closing his lips around the girth of John, dragging heat and saliva along the length of him, curling over the salty flavor at the top and then sliding back down.  He wedged one hand between his chest and the edge of the sofa, working it up to John’s bollocks, and then fingered his way around them, stroking and weighing, gently tugging.  “Yes!” John hissed, bucking forward.  “Suck me hard.”

“Very well, sir,” Sherlock husked, and allowed John’s cock to penetrate his mouth, one hand holding his bollocks, the other pressed against the patch of curls framing John’s sex.  His lips were stretched, this was the largest thing he’d ever fit into his mouth, and he could feel the taut skin at the corners pulled too tight.  John grabbed Sherlock’s hand from its nest of pubic hair and fitted it around his cock, working his own hand on top of that.  He grunted and thrust forward until their combined fists were flush against Sherlock’s lips.  

Sherlock kept his eyes on John’s, waiting for cues, and hollowed his cheeks with suction, John moving hot and heavy atop his tongue.

“God, you’re beautiful,” John gasped, face flushed red.  He slid his other hand around the back of Sherlock’s head and begin to induce a rhythm on him, thrusting to meet him on every forward motion.  “Oh.   _God_.  Yeah-”

This went on for some minutes, and Sherlock began to feel quite desperate for some relief of his own.  He squirmed, first trying to get some pressure against his groin from his bent legs, and when that didn't work, trying to work his way down enough to rut on the cushion.  He could not reach.  Little noises of protest began to emerge when he popped off for air, and John gave him an assessing sweep.  He quickly rearranged himself, and thrust one of his legs between Sherlock’s.  Then, “Don’t stop,” he ordered.

Sherlock sank with relief onto the hard boot nestled against his bollocks.  He rolled his hips, seeking pleasure, while trying not to drool over his and John’s fingers, and unwilling to release the two resilient orbs in his other hand.  He ground down, little whines filling the room, as he sucked and stroked and tried to swallow.  His hair began to matt on his forehead with exertion while John moved him at a rapid pace, down and back, pushing, then pulling on his hair to urge him back up, thrusting to meet him on the downsweep.  Sherlock felt fire seeping through his veins, and John’s groans began to escalate.

Before it could go any further, John jerked Sherlock off, using his hair as a handhold.  Sherlock stayed still, arched backwards, thighs closed around John’s leg, urgent erection still grinding against John’s tall boot.  

“Stop,” John commanded, and Sherlock froze altogether.  

John smiled at him again.  “Very good.  You’re magnificent,” he said reassuringly.  “You’re doing so well.  Perfectly amazing.  I… don’t want it to end yet.”

He stood abruptly, reaching out briefly to catch himself on the wall when one leg buckled a bit.  One hand still twined through Sherlock’s hair, holding him still, he shoved his trousers and pants down to his knees with the other.  His cock, red and rude and inexplicably enticing, bobbed in front of Sherlock’s face.  He planted both feet firmly, and wrapped his free hand around his scrotum, offering it to Sherlock.  “Now suck this,” he ordered.  

Sherlock leaned forward uncertainly.  He hadn’t ever heard of _this_ before, and it didn’t seem as straightforward as sucking on the column of an erect penis.  He held it delicately in his long fingers, feeling the fragile skin, wrinkled and soft, protecting the firm ovals inside.  He tongued a stripe along it, as he had with the penis, and John’s grunt sounded encouraging, the widening of his stance signaling acceptance.

Sherlock licked again, feeling the texture of loose skin and wiry hairs catch upon his tongue, the smell of John, hot and musky and heavy, filling his nose and lungs until he had a feeling he belonged.  No.  That he was _owned_.  He pursed his lips and sucked in a mouthful of loose skin, brushing it smooth with the flat of his tongue, probing into the area when John’s bilateral symmetry began.  John caught him around the face, hands covering both ears, fingers digging into his scalp, and wrenched him so close in to his body that Sherlock could hardly breathe.  

“All of it,” he growled.

So Sherlock opened his mouth wide, used one hand to feed both testicles into his mouth, held them there, warm and vital, closing his lips around everything he could hold, swallowing against excess saliva and a burgeoning thread of shame.  But the noises John was making were rewarding, going high and reckless, and his hands scrubbed at Sherlock’s head as he crushed himself into that uptilted face.  “Yes, yes,” he was choking.

Sherlock used his tongue, moved his mouth, flexed his cheeks, and could feel the metronomic beating of John’s cock against his forehead.  The bollocks in his mouth pulled forward, tightening up, and Sherlock had to struggle to keep them contained.

He clutched John’s thighs when he was shoved back again, and both testes were ripped from his mouth with a smack and a rush of saliva.  John looked down, his expression urgent, his cheeks flushed red and his eyes blown into depthless pools.  Sweat limned his naked torso, highlighting the ripple of muscle below his ribs, the mound of pectorals, the tiny protrusions of brown nipples, dark and nearly hidden in shining golden hair.

“I’m going to fuck you, now,” he said, seemingly struggling to enunciate.  “I’m going to bend you over and fuck you.  It’ll feel good.  I’ll make it feel good.”  

He stooped down and grabbed at Sherlock’s crotch, hand unerringly wrapping around his distended cock, still agonizingly tucked against his leg in the trousers.  John tugged until Sherlock rose unsteadily to his feet, following that cruel grip.  John massaged his straining erection so hard that Sherlock feared he might finish off right here, before the promised fucking.  

Sherlock bent his head, looking down at that face, the older man smiling and ardent, teaching him;  experienced and willing and calling him beautiful.  These were not experiences he had ever had before.  Generally his peers called him a prat, or a freak or simply a bastard.  He had avoided them all once he had learned that he would never be accepted.

John mumbled something unintelligible into his mouth, drawing his head down for a kiss with the hand that was not fumbling with Sherlock’s trousers, trying to nudge them down.  Sherlock sank into the kiss, feeling the wet slide of his chin on John’s, the cool huff of air on his cheek as John exhaled, the erotic suction on his tongue when John pulled it into his own mouth.  He helped John with the buttons of his flies, hands trembling, little mewls spilling out whenever they separated for breath.

And then John had his hands on Sherlock’s flanks, smoothing down taut skin, down his tight lean form, feeling the flex of his muscles as he breathed and moved.  Without hesitation, John cupped his buttocks, hands where none had been before, and Sherlock froze in shock.  John muttered encouragement against his neck and did not stop, did not slow down, slid assertive hands across the globes of his arse, kneading and squeezing and quite frankly _playing_ with the flesh he found there.

It felt terrifying.  It felt exquisite.  It felt…..   Addictive.  Sherlock pushed his freed cock against John’s belly, feeling the returning pressure of John’s own, and dropped his head into the crook of John’s neck, focussed on the hands manipulating his derriere.  

“Oh, _god_ , you feel good.  Is this good for you, Sherlock?  Do you like my hands?  Because I have plans for you.  Oh, I have plans….”  He worked his fingers into the cleft, the meridian of Shrlock’s arse, and rubbed them down, dry and just shy of painful, down until they touched the tightly closed hole there, and Sherlock jumped, frightened and intrigued and bewildered.

John bit his neck.  

Hard, relentless, and Sherlock shuddered at the pain, felt the bruise John sucked to the surface of Sherlock’s previously unmarred skin, and then, utterly without warning, there was a surge of fluid jetting from his cock.  And Sherlock was choking and garbling out his shock and shame at his unexpected orgasm, thrusting against John’s belly as John toyed with his arsehole, which spasmed around the tip of the finger that he’d slid in.

They stood still for a moment.  

Sherlock was afraid to lift his head, sure he'd done something unforgivable, coming before his host and teacher the way he had.  John kept his fingertip inside Sherlock, dry and burning, gently pulsing in and out as the post orgasmic shudders slowly shivered to a halt.  “I’m sorry, sir,” Sherlock whispered miserably into John’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry.  I-”

John urged Sherlock’s head away so he could see his face and then he smiled.  “It’s all right.  You’re young enough to go again.  But.  Next time,” and his voice dropped into a low tone of command, still friendly, but implacable.  “Next time, you come when I say you can, understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

John nodded, friendly as you like, and then pushed Sherlock back down to his knees and drew a finger through the mess Sherlock had left on his belly.  “You might clean this up, though, before we continue.”

Sherlock looked around for a serviette, but John tutted at him.  “With your tongue, Sherlock.”

Sherlock swallowed hard as he looked up, and then dropped his eyes to the smears of moisture, the streaks of his own ejaculate, beginning to trail downwards on John’s skin, dancing around and behind his still-erect phallus.  This was.  Unexpected.  John’s hand was on Sherlock’s head again.  Guiding with assurance and the clear impression that no denial would be accepted.  Sherlock bent his head and used his mouth.

He tasted... elemental.  Bitter and salty with an underlying tang that he thought might be John’s skin.  He assiduously cleaned up, sucking and licking and swallowing.  Then he sat back on his heels, awaiting further instruction.  

John’s face broke into a wide smile.  “Oh, good, Sherlock.   _Very_ _good_.  You’re a natural.  Jesus, how did I get so lucky.”  He removed his boots and pulled the remainder of his clothing off, not telling Sherlock to do the same.  So Sherlock remained where he was, pants caught at his thighs, tall leather boots ridged and uncomfortable under his bare arse.  

John walked over to a side table along the far wall, nestled under an ornate mirror, and slid out a creaky wooden drawer.  “Oil,” he explained.  “I’ll use it in a minute.  But first,” he sauntered back over, limp barely noticeable, and handed one of the glasses of lemonade to Sherlock.  “Refreshment?”  

The drink was warm, now, but Sherlock drank gratefully, tart lemon and too much sugar slowly washing the taste of himself off his tongue.  John drank his own lemonade, eyes watching him unblinking from over the glass.

“Now,” said John, setting down the emptied drink.  “Let me tell you how I want you.”

Sherlock nodded, willing and beginning to itch with anticipation once again.  His spent cock began to feel heavier, hanging between his trembling thighs.

“Excellent.  Stay on your knees, Sherlock, but face the sofa and lay your upper body across it.  Hands by your head.”  Sherlock silently did as John asked, face burning from the vulnerability of the position.  “Very nice,” John drawled.  There was a squealing scrape as the low table was heaved to one side, and John grabbed a cushion and dropped to his knees behind Sherlock’s exposed, indeed, highlighted, bare arse.  “Look at this.”  Warm hands fell onto each buttock, squeezing hard and then scraping red trails down to the crease below, changing angle to draw down his thighs, and on the return path, they coaxed his legs further apart, so that his bollocks swung free.

John’s hands were firm on his inner thighs, riffling the hairs there, pushing him further and further open until he felt strained, and his chest was seated fully on the low sofa.  “Good,” John was mumbling, hands frenetic, touching skin, arse, thighs, tantalizing pressure around his bollocks, loose and heavy, tugging his growing tumescence down and backward, so it could be seen from John’s view.  Sherlock gasped and stifled a loud groan, his skin shivered like a horse beset by flies.  “Sir-” he breathed, strained.

“Shh,” John replied, leaning forward to mouth at the juicy swell of his arse.  Hot tongue, sparking teeth, clenching around a gathered bulge of his flesh, so sensitive, and Sherlock’s cock rushed with blood again, filling out even more, still in John’s hand.  “Shhhh,” and John moved around Sherlock’s arse, nibbling, biting, leaving bruises and bitemarks, leaving shining trails showing his open-mouthed path, wending his way from one side to the other.  He held the jolting boy still under him with one hand on his neck, the other holding his erection painfully pointed downward between his shivering white thighs.  It was a beautiful sight.

When John’s tongue delved into the spread-opened crease of his arse, Sherlock shouted into the cushion under his face, and when the hand left the back of his neck to prise his buttocks open further, he moaned his reluctance and mortification into the brightly colored fabric.  And when John’s mouth closed around his center, when his tongue probed the furled bud of his anus, Sherlock bucked and tried to claw away from the heat, the wet, the _breath_ fanning between his legs.

John turned his head slightly and bit sharply, taking only a small, painful skein of skin between his teeth.  He held it there, hard-bit, until Sherlock stopped moving, panting into the sofa.  John relaxed and licked, flat-tongued and gentle, over the spot where he’d just, perhaps, drawn blood.  

Sherlock was almost crying into the cushions in shock and arousal and shame.  

“Stay still, Sherlock,” John crooned, tongue darting out to lick that forbidden area after each word, hand stroking the length of Sherlock’s hardened cock, pulling it back far enough that it could get a quick swipe of John’s tongue as well.  “It’s fine.  You’re fine.  Aren’t you.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but Sherlock nodded anyway, not trusting his voice, clenching his teeth to prevent them chattering.  He could _feel_ John’s smile, the change in the rise of his cheeks, pressed in the crease of Sherlock’s arse, and John resumed his ministrations before Sherlock could speak.

His mouth.  

Sucked and licked and probed.

John shook his head back and forth, rapidly, like a terrier with a rat, tongue working at his hole, the motion setting off shocks and reverberations of almost unbearable intensity all over his body.  Sherlock nearly screamed into the sofa.

He unconsciously began rocking, not noticing the wetness gathering under his eyes, pushing against the pleasure, the overwhelming sensations, body reacting in frightening and unfamiliar ways as his anus began to relax, and John’s tongue actually _penetrated_ him.  Sherlock groaned and cried and tore at the fabric of the sofa, muffling all the noise and emotion in the stuffed cotton of the seat.  And all the while John licked, and sucked, and wriggled, and his hand was hot and hard on Sherlock's penis, and Sherlock was ready to fly to pieces.

Then John stopped, holding still, his tongue still buried within Sherlock's body, hand calming now, on his pulsing cock.  He released the stressed grip of his fingers on Sherlock’s buttock, allowing some relief to the opening stretch, and slowly slid out.  “Fantastic,” he muttered, wiping his face with his arm and twisting to snag the jar of oil off the table.

He kept his hold on Sherlock's erection, as if worried that should he allow it to spring back upright he’d never have been able to pull it back again.  Which may have been true.  Sherlock had never tried this, he had no data.  

John dipped his fingers in the oil, slicked an amount on the cock in his hand, then refreshed his supply and put his fingers where his mouth just was.  He lay his weight across Sherlock’s back, as if to keep him from bolting.  Although he shouldn’t worry.  The rhythm of panting and muffled cries from the young man, the dilation of his anus, the undulation of his body, all screamed of lust and urgency, of the need to seek completion.

Two slick fingers probed without fanfare into the opening of Sherlock’s body, and he jumped again, lifting his face briefly from the cushion to draw in a harsh, deep gasp of air.  “John-” his voice was deep and broken and _wrecked_ , and John shuddered to hear it.  The circling fingers rubbed hard, catching on the rim, dipping inside, pushing slowly in and then coyly drawing back out.  Sherlock’s choppy breathing filled the room.  He’d turned his head to access air, and his face was red, wet with sweat and perhaps tears, curls in damp tendrils along his cheek and nape.  “John-” he begged again.

“Do you like it?”

Sherlock squirmed.  “Yes.  God, yes.  I just-”

John didn’t wait, but slipped a third finger into the mix, pressing all three home, plunging in and out of Sherlock’s body at an almost brutal pace, and Sherlock whined and squirmed under his chest, against his thighs, his sleek phallus throbbing in John’s hand.  

John turned his fingers downwards, searched, rubbed and stroked, found the smooth nodule of Sherlock's pleasure, and worked it ruthlessly.  Sherlock whimpered and panted and jerked so hard that John had to stop what he was doing and grab onto Sherlock’s arms, twisting them into the small of his back and holding them there, grasping hard around his wrists, bearing down with his chest.

***

Sherlock was so hot he thought his skin might split, lubricated with sweat and oil and the enticing smell of the man along his back, heady and intoxicating.  His hands were firmly pinned against his back, he could hardly move, much less struggle, and John was doing something, something _inside_ him, that had sparks lighting up behind his eyes, had his cock jumping and leaking, had his stomach roiling with butterflies and the sweat on his body turn cold and prickling.

John’s fingers slid out, and Sherlock heard the jar of oil again, the rude squelching as it was slicked onto a body part that did not belong to him.  “Now, sweet virgin,” John panted against his back, not tall enough to reach his ear at that angle.  John’s knees nudged his own wider still, lowering his rear to the height that John required for the act.  “ _Now_ I will fuck you.”

Sherlock felt the blunt head of John’s cock poke at his entrance, slick up and down teasingly, spreading oil and precome, and he keened, shaking.  

“Any objections?” John panted, the tip of his cock pushing against the ring of muscle he’d so assiduously and devastatingly loosened in the previous 15 minutes.  

Sherlock just gasped and lifted his arse and choked out “Go, go, go, dammit,” which made John huff a laugh and lay a kiss on the mole at the edge of one shoulderblade.  He bumped forward, flared corona snapping past the resistance of Sherlock’s sphincter, and Sherlock cried out, shivering, fingers twitching against John’s ribs, scrabbling as if seeking a hold.

Teasing, John pulled back out, and then popped in again.  And again, until Sherlock’s rim was reddened and the boy was incoherent with desire.

And then, John couldn’t play games anymore;  he entered completely, slow and merciless.  Sherlock bucked away and back, torn between the pain and the pleasure.  John rotated his hips in a luxury of excess, delving into hedonistic passion, dragging out sensation, feeling the joining between them hot and wrenching and uncomfortable and blissful all at once.  

Sherlock buried his face into the sofa again, vocalizing his gasps until he sounded like he was sobbing like a child, but John could read his body, could feel how overwhelmed he was, how desperate, how _curious_ and needy and _willing_.  “John, John, _John_ , oh, sir oh _sir_ , please…”

And John slammed forward, sliding his cock through the tight grip of Sherlock’s arse, enhancing the drag on each ridge and vein, feeling the soft pulse of Sherlock’s insides, yielding before him, and he drove himself home until he was balancing on the precarious edge….

And reached around, grasping Sherlock’s erection at the root, tugging in an effort to bring the boy along with him….  "Now, Sherlock," he ground through stiff lips.  "Now.  Come.  I want you to come."

And Sherlock went rigid, scream muffled, spine arched, legs shaking uncontrollably;  while John hunched over him, thrusting wildly, pulsing his seed inside this beautiful young man, this willing acolyte, filling him up until the liquid dribbled from his well-used hole, trickling in a foamy stream down the seam of his body, slid to the creases of his thighs, and John plugged him up again, gently sliding back and forth, slowing them both down from their desperate high, each diminishing stroke calming, a reminder that there was someone there to catch them, that the fall would be gentle, painless, easy.

Sherlock remained still, until at last John drew out, softened and smaller, and sat back on shaking legs, staring at the alabaster skin before him, reddened with his marks, the bountiful curve of arse, the lean lines of his back, the sweat-soaked head of black curls.  Those staggeringly gorgeous, unusual eyes were closed, and Sherlock’s breaths were lengthening, becoming more regular.

John stumbled to the washroom to get a damp cloth, and returned to brush it over Sherlock’s back, turning his head, heavy on a limp neck, to wipe at the sweat and tears there.  He continued to wash, slow and reverent, eventually reaching that spot between his legs that spilled over with semen and oil, still twitching in reflexive eroticism.

“Sherlock,” he said at last, gently.  “Budge up on the sofa, there, will you?  You can’t be comfortable.”

Sherlock simply looked at him with dazed eyes, blank and sated, and John grinned.  “Legs up,” he said, and Sherlock responded to the command in his tone, dragging himself up on the wide sofa with a sigh.  

John cleaned himself off as well, swiping the cool cloth across his chest, face and spent cock.  God, if felt good.  He dropped the used fabric on the floor and followed Sherlock to the sofa, lying down beside him, slipping an arm under narrow shoulders and rolling the malleable mass of young man into his side.  He wove his fingers through curly hair and smiled at the ceiling.  “I’ve got the house to myself for the summer,” he said in a normal voice.  “I’d love for you to stay.”

Sherlock flashed those amazing, light ocean-colored eyes at him and his trembling mouth formed the beginnings of a returning smile.  “I’d- I’d like-” he croaked, and stopped to clear his throat.  “I’d like that.”

John pushed Sherlock’s head back down, holding it against the swell of his chest, against the blazing scar that he thought had spelled his end, and smiled as he felt Sherlock’s body fall into the utter laxity of sleep.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Here’s a beautiful example of the [Muslim call to prayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvlimEYEpQ), heard in every corner of the city 5 times a day.


	2. Wrapped Around Your Finger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to betas [Snogandagrope](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope) and [ScienceofObsession](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/pseuds/ScienceofObsession) for being generally awesome.  My sweet [BoastsALot](http://boastsalot.tumblr.com/post/68088039535/this-is-for-mojoflowers-amazing-fic-wrapped) did a picture for the last chapter which fits just as well here, so you’ll find it at the bottom.  (Thank you, doll!!!).  Also, [Batik](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Batik/pseuds/Batik) found two PERFECT photos of Sherlock and John, which I’ve put at the beginning of the story, in the previous chapter, so y’all should definitely check that out.

John drove Sherlock back to the hotel in silence, lounging back in the seat of his motorcar, knees angled out when he was not pressing the pedals.  Sherlock could not stop looking at him, sidelong, from underneath his lashes, as subtly as he could.  

Sherlock himself sat upright and proper, emphatically straight on the leather of the seat, face held impassive against the odd twinges and aches coming from his arse.  He refused to slouch to the side, or in any way indicate his discomfort.  As he had often done, a habit begun back in the days of bullying peers and an overly corrective father, he focused on the pain, rather than trying to ignore it.  He calculated where it sat on a scale ranging from paper cut to appendicitis (which had nearly killed him).  He embraced it, allowed it to seep from his bottom to his spine, through his thighs, allowed it to diffuse through his body and become a part of his baseline.

John slid him a glance and his arm lifted to fall again over the back of the seat, fingers running up from Sherlock’s nape to tangle in his curls.  He tugged gently, and his bearing and smile were gentle as well when he spoke.  “Are you all right?  Having second thoughts?  I can just drop you off, if you’d rather stay at the hotel.”

Sherlock sat even straighter.  “I know my own mind,” he said and then immediately regretted sounding so young and defensive.  He looked at John again, making an effort to appear seductive.  He licked his lips deliberately and the dilation of John’s pupils, the flush that flared to life across his cheekbones, was immediate.  Sherlock allowed himself a raised eyebrow and a small smirk.  “I believe I’ll find that staying with you shall prove to be far more educational than the hotel, sir,” he amended.

John tugged at his hair again, then slid his hand down to Sherlock’s shoulder, rubbing the smooth skin beneath his loose shirt, clasping around his long neck, creeping upward to stroke his jaw, as if John wanted to touch every part of him and believed he had run out of time.

John’s laugh was low, delayed and gravely with hunger.  “Good,” he said simply.  He shifted gears, weaving his way through a small street market, and the jarring _arru-gah_ of the car horn was enough to disturb the moment.  A turbaned man lazily guided a small herd of goats to one side of the road, and they crept along.

The hotel seemed smaller when they eventually arrived and Sherlock felt that he looked at it with jaded eyes, as if a veneer of sophistication had been burned off the structure since this morning when he had left.  The people hurrying in and out now seemed shallow and insulated to him, whereas before they had been more intriguing and mysterious.

It took a mere 20 minutes to order his trunks to John’s autocar, and to leave his new direction with the concierge in case Mycroft needed to locate him.  He walked out feeling the subtle burn in his thighs and between his legs, thinking to himself that no one here knew that feeling as he did;  that he had found something so special, so unique.

John smiled at everyone they encountered, face curling up into lines of amiability and innocence that fascinated Sherlock.  He had a difficult time reconciling the expression with the dark face of the man who had bent him over the sofa, who had told him how to suck his cock, who had opened him up in the most intimate of ways not several hours earlier.  He watched his new mentor with avid eyes, absorbing it all, reveling in the fact that he knew facets of this man that none of the others realized;  that he was presenting a mask to them, and they were believing it without probing any deeper.  Sherlock’s chest swelled with a deep breath, redolent of warmth, satisfaction and accomplishment.

And even in the hotel, a place of such propriety, John could not keep his hands of his new young friend, kept touching him on his arm and shoulder, putting a hand on his lower back, closing fingers around his hip.  Sherlock found he was impatient to get back to John’s home, to leave the unsubtle, unctuous glances of the British tourists who cluttered the salons, trying to find an amusing divertissement.

Sherlock had _found_ a pleasurable pastime.  And he would like very much to resume it.

The ride back seemed interminable.  Dusk was solidly upon them when they entered the courtyard, and John closed the gate with a sigh, locking out the rest of the world.

Sherlock moved around the vehicle to the trunk, opening it to reveal his baggage.  He heaved his box up to his shoulder and was grabbing his bag when John said, “Stop.”

Sherlock froze.

John approached him and smiled, the smile of a harmless man (the best camouflage Sherlock had ever seen in action) and indicated with a jerk of his jaw that Sherlock should put his burden back where it came from.  Sherlock did, and John stepped back, hands held behind him, cane dangling carelessly, looking him over from head to toe.  “Sherlock, while you’re here,” he said slowly, but by no means hesitant, “you’ll have no need of a shirt.”  He stopped and waited, eyes patient and encouraging.

Uncertainly, Sherlock unbuttoned his waistcoat and his shirt, shrugging out of both.  John nodded in approval:   _Yes, this is what I want._  Sherlock shoved the discarded fabric into an outer pocket of his bag and began to heft up his trunk again.  John lay warm hands over the muscles of his back as they shifted and strained, and Sherlock felt hot breath on his shoulder blades when John breathed, “Good.  Very good.”

Smug, basking in John’s obvious appreciation, Sherlock sauntered up the stair to the entryway, staring at John with heavy-lidded eyes as he unlocked the door to let them in.  There was a bustle in the hall, and a dark-skinned woman wrapped in muffling robes nodded at John, saying something in her native tongue.  John answered, and Sherlock caught the words for _meal_ , _table_ and _tomorrow_.  The woman nodded and stared at Sherlock with piercing eyes, bright and analytic under greying eyebrows.  She gave him a small smile, and he smiled back, a bit nervous that she might be judging him.

“Sherlock, this is Fatima.  She comes by once a day to be sure I’ve not burned the place down in my attempts to cook.  She tidies, does the laundry, that kind of thing.  My housekeeper.”

“Er.  How do you do?” Sherlock said awkwardly.

She narrowed her eyes at him again, face impassive, and then vanished down the hall.  John picked up the smaller of Sherlock’s bags and began up the stairs, his faint limp not noticeably slowing him down.  Sherlock followed, practically pressing his shoulder to the inner wall as the stairs were narrow and his trunk was cumbersome.

John made his way to the end of a dark hall and opened a double door leading to what was obviously the master suite.  A shallow balcony stretched along the far wall, lined with four opened doors, all letting in the last of the light and framing the wispy clouds that now danced between slowly revealed stars.  John tossed the bag into the middle of an enormous bed, and Sherlock blinked and moved forward.

It was a lovely room and clearly John expected that Sherlock would share it with him.  His eyes darted around the space, noting female clutter on a small vanity:  pots of makeup and bottles of perfume.  He recalled that John had a wife and felt tense at the idea of sleeping in her bed while she was gone.  John, perhaps picking up on his hesitation, turned to him with a smile, eyebrows slightly lifted and hands palm up.  “There’s a guest room as well,” he said, and it seemed to be a challenge.

Sherlock scowled.  Of course he did not need the guest room.  He was not some hothouse flower.  He knew what he was doing.  He had _chosen_ this:  to be here with this man.

Sherlock nestled his trunk into the corner next to the little vanity and John solemnly invited him to remove his boots.  

When Sherlock was barefoot, in nothing but his trousers, John said, “Why don’t you wait here, Sherlock.  I’ll run down and get us a bite to eat.”  He was smiling, but his eyes were intent.  It felt like a test.  Sherlock nodded and began to sit at the foot of the bed, close to one of the massive corner posts.  He had to duck around gauzy netting, which draped the entire bed but was tied up on three sides.  Before his arse had quite met the mattress, John stopped him with an arm on his elbow.

“Sherlock,” he said.  His voice was light and sweet, but Sherlock froze anyway, hovering inches above the bed, eyes widened and waiting.  John pointed to a thick rug at the bedside and continued to probe Sherlock with his gaze.  “I’d like for you to wait here, if you don’t mind.  If you find you’re uncomfortable, then of course you may tell me so.”

Sherlock felt a strange stirring of arousal at the thought and mutely shook his head.  Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor, sitting on his folded legs, hands arranged laxly on his knees.  He looked up at John from under thick lashes, not failing to note the tumescence beneath his fitted trousers and John’s satisfied face higher still.  John grinned, looking for a moment relieved, and then turned on his heel and marched away, limp almost imperceptible.

Sherlock bent his head, staring as his hands slowly faded to gray with the last light of the setting sun.  His brain was buzzing, coherent thoughts were hard to come by.  Primarily, he felt lust, his cock already hard and ready for more action.  Kneeling by the bed felt… strange… subservient and unnerving but also in an odd way, _safe_.  He shifted, the soft wool of the rug tickling the sensitive tops of his feet and his ankles.  He rolled his hips just to feel fabric drag across his bollocks, and he dropped his head back, breathing hard, staring at the gauze canopy just behind him.

Footsteps heralded John’s return.  Sherlock could smell dinner, fresh baked bread with strong overtones of cumin and cloves.  John held a tray and a lamp, encircled by warm light and good smells.  Sherlock wanted to rise and meet him, but stayed where he had been placed.  John set the tray on the bed and hung the lamp from a hook on the wall.  There was a hiss as he turned on the two gas lights bracketing the bed, and they lit with a quiet _pop_.

Mellow stucco and aged beams around them began to glow in the gentle light, softened with the curtains and wall hangings.  A nighttime breeze wafted through the balcony doors and stirred the fabric in the room, ruffling Sherlock’s hair and cooling the sweat on his body.

John took off his own waistcoat and shirt, staring at Sherlock the whole time, dropping his clothes on a nearby chair and Sherlock held his breath.  John’s skin was much darker than his own, tanned and healthy in spite of the raised reddened scar across one shoulder.  Solid muscles moved under his skin, drawing Sherlock’s admiring eyes.  He may have been invalided out of the Army, but he certainly had not remained inactive.  The golden and grey hairs on his chest caught and reflected the light, giving him a bewitching luminescence, and Sherlock thought briefly, _I am the moth_.  John removed his boots and socks, and then they were both in thin trousers and nothing more.

John sat next to the tray, thigh hard against Sherlock’s shoulder, and said, “Turn around, then.  I imagine you’re hungry.”  Sherlock rose to his knees and shuffled around, until he was situated between John’s legs.  He scooted close, until John’s calves pressed against his arms, and his own knees were just tucked under the frame of the bed.  John grinned at him and twisted to break off a piece of bread, using it to scoop up a large bite of curry.  Sherlock’s eye caught on the fine hairs under John’s arms, and was surprised when the bread was suddenly in front of his lips.

“Open up, then,” John said.  Sherlock did.  As the bread was pushed into his mouth he remembered that morning, when John had fed him his erection instead, and could not prevent a soft little moan before he chewed and swallowed.  John made a deeper sound and rested his hand, possessive and warm around Sherlock’s throat, thumb gently against his Adam’s apple as he swallowed it down.

And so went the meal.  One sensual bite at a time, alternating between the two of them.  John gave him sips of cool water in between, rubbing the dribbles that escaped his mouth with his thumb:  across his lips and chin, into the hollow of his neck, meandering down his chest.  Sherlock’s flesh pebbled with the contrast of cool liquid and rough thumb as it scraped through the scant hairs on his pectorals and across a tightly contracted nipple.

Neither one spoke.  John was attentive to Sherlock’s meal, his own bites seeming almost incidental.

Eventually he slowed down, fingers brushing over Sherlock’s lips and jaw, hand folded around his chin as he held the glass to his lips, cupping his throat as he swallowed;  and Sherlock boldly licked stray curry from his thumb as he withdrew.

Outside, the city noise faded.  The melodic ululation of the day’s final muezzin song echoed hauntingly through the streets as people retreated to their houses and settled in for the night.

“Have you had enough?” John asked, standing up and putting the tray on the table.  

Sherlock nodded, sated of his hunger, and stared up at John with eyes that glinted, darkening with excitement.  Now.  It was _now_ , and Sherlock felt like he’d been waiting for _ages_.  “Yes, sir.” he answered eagerly.  “I can-  What do you want now?”

John laughed, hands flicking open the buttons at his own flies, and unselfconsciously stepped out of the remainder of his clothes, standing naked in front of Sherlock for the second time.  His body was spare, although it thickened with muscle in the shoulders and arms.  His feet were so small as to be almost dainty, and Sherlock had the odd thought that he could hold one in a single hand.  Body hair softened his outline, like an aurora in the gaslight and Sherlock rose to his knees without even realizing he did it, earnestly driven to get closer to the man.  Although John’s individual parts might indicate a petit stature, the sum of him manifested not frailty but restrained power and confidence, which attracted Sherlock on such a level that it would have frightened him if he had been thinking with anything besides his sex.

John’s penis was stiffened, perpendicular to his body, pointing at Sherlock, and as he avidly watched, it bounced and throbbed, echoing whatever plans John had in his mind.  John stepped forwards, stepped again, continued until his erection brushed Sherlock’s lips, took the last step as Sherlock eagerly opened them, mouth wet with anticipatory saliva;  and John pushed his cock in.

Sherlock choked on the rapid insertion, John’s glans jabbing into the back of his throat;  he quickly lifted his hand to grasp the bottom half of the shaft, preventing it from impaling him.  John growled a little and jerked back.  He bent until he and Sherlock were eye to eye and then pinched and tweaked his nipple sharply.  “You don’t use your hands unless I tell you to,” he commanded, and Sherlock could hear decades of military service in that voice.  He gasped at the electric sliver of pain under John’s twisting fingers, hating it, but also feeling his loins ripple with excitement;  and to his surprise found himself pushing his chest forward into John’s hand.

John smiled at him.  “Like that, do you?” he asked quietly.  Sherlock just licked his lips, leaving them slightly parted, and tasted the musky flavor of John that painted his mouth.  “Get up,” John ordered quietly.  “And lie face down on the bed.  Hands behind your back.  I’m going to make sure you understand that I’m in charge, here.”

Sherlock scrambled to his feet and nearly tripped as he made for the bed.

“Stop,” John said quickly.  “I want you naked.”

Sherlock turned and looked down at the man, who had moved several steps back as if to better frame the view.  Sherlock thought about how he must look, centered against the huge bed, with its red and orange coverlet, the white netting draping from directly over his head to fall on either side, caught back with red silk ribbons.  The apricot light from the gas lamp turned his fair skin to a tanned tone that echoed John’s, skipped over the hollows of his body, his throat, his groin, his armpits, the temples under his curling hair, and highlighted those parts of him that jutted:  his cock, eager and pushing against the front of his trousers, the balls of his shoulders, the broad sweep of his cheekbones.

Slowly, he dropped his hands to his waistband, staring at John as if holding a lifeline, and unfastened it.  He had only to edge the fabric over the jut of his hipbones and the obstructive column of his erection before letting it fall unhindered to the floor.  He pulled his feet free, long and narrow, shadowed between limber toes, never breaking their gaze.

John’s tongue was out, sweeping over his own lips, and his chest rose and fell rapidly.  “God, Sherlock,” he said in a high, breathless voice, before visibly regaining control.  “ _Now_ you can lie down.”

Sherlock turned and climbed onto the bed, aware of how his arse was high, directly in John’s view, bollocks tangling between suddenly clumsy legs.  He deliberately slowed himself, glancing back over his shoulder at John and froze momentarily, excited by the naked _greed_ on his face.  He pushed pillows out of the way and stretched out full length, rolling his spine as he settled, chest down, head twisted to one side so he could watch John.  He pulled his wrists behind himself, holding them in the small of his back.

John came closer, stood over him silently, then skimmed his hand from Sherlock’s neck to the vee of his crossed arms, curling his fingers around delicate wrists.  He traced an irregular pattern from Sherlock’s ribs to his shoulder, and Sherlock realized he was writing the constellation of his moles.

John drew back and walked around the bed, undoing the silken ties so that the netting fell around each side, enclosing them in a glowing tent; and John climbed inside with the final removal, adjusting the fabric behind himself.  The last twist of red remained in his hands, and as he straddled Sherlock’s calves, Sherlock could feel the dichotomous textures of the crisp hairs of John’s own legs and the rivulet of silk as the ribbon was trailed along the backs of his thighs.

Sherlock groaned, suddenly and loudly into the stillness of the room, and squirmed against the shivers incited by the wisp of silk.  He hissed, and although his eyes remained open they were now unseeing, all his focus on the weight of the slight yet compelling man who sat on his legs, who provoked him with the ribbon, now trailing up an inner thigh, brushing coyly against his scrotum, sweeping in gossamer patterns across the swell and dip of his arse.  Sherlock could not stop himself from pumping his hips into the bed, the rough embroidery of the coverlet scraping gloriously against his cock.

John kept it up, dragging the maddening tie across his body in unpredictable patterns, until Sherlock was deliriously sensitized, panting into the coverlet bunched up by his mouth, hands clenched together across his back, as the merciless tickle continued; pooling in the groove of his spine, slipping to either side of his neck, slithering crimson in his peripheral vision, dragging down the long line of his back and falling over his white-knuckled fingers, sifting exquisitely along the crack of his arse.

John’s breathing was hoarse behind him while he shuffled his way up and down Sherlock’s body, taking his time.  The scrape of John’s flesh, smooth here, hair-roughened there, damp with sweat, was a grounding counterpoint to the teasing strip of silk, which finally progressed to the length of his legs, courting the backs of his knees and grazing the delicate skin on the arches of his feet.  Sherlock twitched and undulated, shivering and gasping with a wanton urgency.

Uttering a shaky huff that could be a laugh or a sob, John scooted back up towards Sherlock’s center, and the ribbon was deftly caught around his wrists, binding them tightly.  “So good for me,” John mumbled, almost as if he didn’t know he was speaking.  “So responsive.”

Sherlock twisted his head around further, looking questioningly up at the man.  A man he had only known for the day, and somewhere under the hazed fervor of sensuality, anxiety grew, the disconcerting realization that he was with a stranger, in a foreign country.  A man with the background of a fighter, no less, who had just tied him up;  who had him naked and helpless on his bed, far from the hotel where his brother had naively left him to his own devices.

John’s expression was ardent, face flushed from his taunting game, a sheen of moisture across his forehead and shoulders reflecting the lingering heat of the day, the sultry air of the night.  His eyes were hungrily fastened on Sherlock’s back, and his hands stroked along Sherlock’s flanks, from armpit to upper leg, rising again to crest his arse and then close his bound wrists in a hard grip.  John looked at him, saw that he was watching, and blew out a breath.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Sherlock began to answer, but was somewhat mortified to hear a whine instead.  His fear was floundering in a sea of lust, a dizzying combination which left him confused and wild.  He nodded vigorously though, and John’s face creased into the easy lines of a smile.  “Good,” he said.  “Very good.  Now, young Sherlock,” his hand began to massage across Sherlock’s buttocks, pushing into the meat of each one.  “Do you recall that I am in charge?  And that you may not use your hands without permission?”

Awkwardly, Sherlock stared at John over his shoulder, heart hammering behind his breastbone, eyes sliding from John’s own penetrating gaze to the darker, shiny tissue of his scar.  John waited, so at last Sherlock replied, in a strained voice, “Yes.  Sir.”

“Very good,” John replied, and both hands were pushing and kneading into his bottom now.  There was a small pinch, and then a very light slap.  “A short punishment is all we need at this time.”

Sherlock’s eyebrow soared, his lips parted in a shaky inhalation, and in the back of his mind he was thinking, _What have I got into.  Oh, god, what have I got into?_  But his traitorous head simply nodded.  There was another slap at his arse, this one sharper, more discrete, leaving a warm stinging in its wake.  “Say _Yes, sir,_ now Sherlock.”

“Ah,” Sherlock could not stop a wiggle, twitching his hips under John’s hands, flexing the muscles of his thighs under John’s seat, pushing up slightly with his rear to feel John’s hardened cock nudging against the furrow between his tightly clenched legs.  “Yes, sir.”  His voice was thin, no power behind it, he could not take a full breath.  Shivers of adrenaline crackled under his skin, the strangely addictive mix of panic and sexual hunger leaving him sporadically flinching and moaning under the older man.

One hand lifted to return with the sharp report of another slap, and Sherlock jolted into the bed, mouth open, eyes tightly closed.  John moved around on him for a moment, but Sherlock kept his eyes shut.  When John resettled, a hand worked its way between his thighs, pushing insistently until he’d spread open a bit.  He was still caught under John, but now with room enough for a hand between his legs, and John immediately used that space, sliding slicked fingers under the seam of his body, scooping unceremoniously into the heat between the tensed globes of his arse.

The next slap of his free hand to resilient flesh was accompanied by those digits pushing up against his anus.  Sherlock cried out in spite of himself, and his skin began to burn, heat flowing through the conduits of his body until he felt entirely aflame, suffused with that strange blend of shame and arousal.

After that it was simply long minutes of John, smacking the shivering calescence of his flesh, hidden digits working their lubricated way inside his body, an additional finger jabbing inside him with every third or fourth blow, corkscrewing slowly in and out while Sherlock fought to catch his breath.

One.  Two.  Three.  Four.

Sherlock whined, pushing back against John, entirely confused by his wanton reaction to corporal punishment.  He had been beaten with a paddle at school, as they all had, and had _never_ responded sexually before.  But this.  This.  Hearing John’s harsh exhale with each spank, four fingers ramming up his arse in accompaniment to each smacking blow;  he was jerking, panting and pulsing, rolling his hips back and forth between John’s assertive hand and the palliative friction of the coverlet beneath him.

John stopped after a small eternity.  He used his palm to smooth over Sherlock’s kindled flesh, both soothing and inciting, and began to thrust steadily with the hand that plugged him.  Sherlock groaned loudly into the bed, a broken velvet basso sound, desperate and overwhelmed by sensation.  His brain had stopped observing, had given control over to the man seated on his thighs, who guided his response as confidently as if the fingers in his body correlated to a bit and bridle.  Sherlock tugged at his own arms, and felt the ribbon bite into the thin skin over the protruding knobs of his wrist bones.

John pulled back, and Sherlock momentarily thought he felt the damp, warm gust of his breath across the piquant sting of his bottom.  The digits inside him tugged, until Sherlock surfaced enough to realize he was being urged upwards.  Obediently, he waddled up to his knees, shoulders and head still pressed into the bed.

“God, you’re beautiful,” John breathed, fingers curling and spreading inside him.  “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Sherlock gave a gasping cry, a softer warmth of pride growing to underscore the more frightening blaze of  lust .  His legs were spread, rendering him even more vulnerable, and John knelt between them, one buried to the knuckles in his body, the other coming to squeeze tightly over his bound wrists.  Sherlock shivered.  The sweat on his face felt icy against his fevered skin and he thought of how he must look, how they both looked….

John’s hand glided up Sherlock’s damp back, along the deep indentation of his spine, and curved around his neck, holding him firmly.  The digits inside him began to pulse, in and out, anchored by the thumb, which remained external, braced against his coccyx.

And Sherlock was lost.  Simply lost.

The room faded, colors muting and disappearing;  he did not even know if his eyes were opened or closed.  His world shrank to the heavy, calloused hand holding tightly to his neck, grounding him, _owning_ him… and the indescribably luscious sensation of the broad expanse of _all_ of John’s fingers, pushing masterfully into his body, flexing against the sensitive walls within, fluttering tauntingly around the spot Sherlock had only just discovered with John this morning.  Too-fleeting sizzles of  arousal  zinged out when he touched there, and then withdrew again, frustrating Sherlock’s effort to rock back by pinning him more tightly by the neck.

Sherlock could feel the stretch of his skin around John’s hand;  he was held open _so wide_ and yet tortuously dissatisfied at the same time.  His penis ached, dripping and jumping with every motion within him, beating ineffectually against his belly;  and his bollocks lifted, so tight they could be caught in a vice.  His temperature would not regulate, veering wildly between dangerously overheated and gelid gooseflesh.  His skin felt like mere tissue paper, overlying frenzied nerves.

And John didn’t stop.  He didn’t stop, _in out flutter touch drag._  Noises spilled out of Sherlock’s mouth, half muffled against the bedspread - fricatives and aspirants, meaningless strings of vowels that lifted into agonized wails.  He had no shame.  He scarcely had awareness, just choked on nonsense and drove himself frantically against John for resolution.

John spoke to him.   _Good boy_ and _You’re so beautiful like this_ and _I’ll take care of you, Sherlock._   _You can take it.  You take it so beautifully, Sherlock._  He sounded almost as wrecked as Sherlock.  His thighs trembled where they pressed against Sherlock’s own and his voice was broken and jagged, pitch rising.

Sherlock screwed his eyes closed and fuzzily hoped he was not weeping.  He was certainly babbling and sweating, and at last John showed a modicum of mercy and began to tease less, fingers rubbing with purpose against the hypersensitive part inside him.  The icy flashes were subsumed in roaring fever so that Sherlock thought he might split;  from the point where he was impaled on John’s hand to the oversensitized nubs of nipples rubbing on the embroidered covers, to his mouth, lips cracked with all the crying out he had done, gasping and cursing.  Searing tears clung to his lashes, burned the skin under his eyes, must be leaving reddened trails in their wake, and all he could say was _Please.  Please, John.  Please.  HELP me. Let me come._

John leaned forward until his cock jammed between Sherlock’s legs, jabbing up against his bollocks, and his hips held his hand inside more tightly.  He worked that spot, dedicated and relentless and gasped into Sherlock’s shoulder blade, “You can come.  Can you come, Sherlock?  You’re so close.”  Then he curled his hand, pushed his fingers hard against the bundle of nerves and rubbed in tight, ruthless circles.  Sherlock leaped beneath him, garbled and choking, and shuddered, almost nauseous with it.

All that intensity of feeling rushed to his untouched erection, contracted from his limbs and face and spine;  and the torrent of it spilled into his arse, his bollocks, prickling across his skin.  Sherlock convulsed at the spasming of his cock as torrid semen erupted, jet after jet, John muttering encouragement and obscenities in a shaking voice, stroking him through it from the inside, holding him down by the neck, fingers dancing and spreading and then, thankfully, stilling.

Sherlock slowly returned to himself to discover that he was sobbing.

When John slowly pulled out (and Sherlock felt so empty, empty and abandoned) and lifted himself off a bit, Sherlock melted into the bed, rolling onto his back with John’s help, ignoring the awkwardness of the arms tied behind him.

Aftershocks of lightning still sizzled through him, and he stared at John with swollen eyes, the irises gleaming green and grey.  John swung a leg over his hip, straddled him, arse solidly on his stomach, knees on either side of his elbows, and swiped his hand through the residual smears of ejaculate that had hit his chest before dribbling to the bed.

John’s face was florid and damp, and his expression a bit maniacal, and his cock jerked stiffly over Sherlock’s chest.

“You were amazing, Sherlock.  Awe-inspiring.  God, _Jesus Christ.”_  Lubed with Sherlock’s come and his own pre-ejaculate, he grabbed his straining erection and began to pull, full-body shudders accompanying each stroke, eyes on Sherlock’s as he leaned forward, supporting his weight on the hand planted against the headboard.  He reared up after only a few strokes, hips forward, staring at Sherlock as those last few tears leaked into his hair, and then with a shout, John began to come, spurting stripes of hot semen onto Sherlock’s neck, his jaw, his cheeks, the corner of his eye, where it slid into his hairline along with the tears, and lastly, onto his lips, parted for air, and Sherlock licked it into his mouth, warm and bitter and so _so good._

John scooped his hand across Sherlock’s cheek and swept the emissions into his mouth; Sherlock obediently opened, sucked, swallowed.  His stinging arse pressed into the bed, his arms uncomfortably twisted under the small of his back.  His aching hole felt stretched, still loose and spasming.  His penis lay heavy on his thigh, and his face was wet with an elemental mixture of bodily fluids.  Dread and desire and satiation all vied for precedence in his mind, but he resolutely ignored the first as John climbed off and cleaned his face with a cloth before rolling him over and gently freeing his wrists, rubbing the reddened indentations that crisscrossed fragile bones.

When he had turned off the gas lights and blown out the lamp, John crawled into bed, barely visible in the light of the rising gibbous moon.  He lay next to the youth, carefully arranged him in the curve of his shoulder, and huffed a quiet laugh.  “I don’t know whether I should be worried or flattered that your release always appears to be accompanied by tears.”

“Mmmph.” Sherlock could hardly be bothered to speak, body nearly paralyzed with such a violent tsunami of pleasure.  His voice was much deeper than normal as he hummed, “Whichever response will make you want to do it again,” he said, and was soundly sleeping before he heard an answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, someone made a post about Sherlock fingering John to the point of tears, and CircusOfMe (aka [The_Circus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Circus/pseuds/The_Circus)) challenged me to write that.  Well, obviously, I had to do it the other way around, but, whoa, Nellie, did I get in some fingering.  Hope y’all enjoyed it!


	3. I Know What You're Up To

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [ScienceofObsession](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/pseuds/ScienceofObsession) and [Snogandagrope](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope), who are not only fantastic, reliable, and efficient betas, but also good friends.
> 
> Oh!  This chapter now has the most delectable art by [jinglebell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jinglebell/pseuds/jinglebell) (aka [jinglebell-fic](http://jinglebell-fic.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr), in all his pajama-pantsed, sweaty, glistening, muscle-y glory.  No, really.  Go thank her for the amazing art, give her a kudos or a comment where it's posted here on her[AO3 Sketchbook](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1669427/chapters/5030642) and here on her [tumblr](http://jinglebell-fic.tumblr.com/post/97195557566/ok-full-disclosure-the-first-iteration-of-this), because we all want to encourage this kind of visualization of young, sexy virgin!Sherlock simply smoldering and _working it,_ don't we?

Sherlock planted both bare feet together, sides touching, toes aligned.  He slumped forwards on an exhale, folding his body in half until his nose bumped his knees, twining his arms behind his thighs to brighten the stretch.  He stared at the mosaic floor under him, a floral pattern beginning to shimmer as dawn broke and light crested the horizon.  Sherlock straightened, lengthening his spine, arms rising gracefully until they were fully extended above his head, palms together, ribs lifting and expanding with his breath.  He continued the extension, arching until he dipped fully back, making a bridge of his body, hands dropping to the floor behind his feet to support his weight.

A furtive glance towards the balcony showed an upside-down John, tea steaming in his hand, staring avidly as Sherlock went through his morning routine.  Sherlock internalized a smirk, and did not reveal that he knew John was watching.  He pushed off with his toes and flipped his legs over his body until he could stand once more.

Finished stretching, he bent to pick up one of John’s canes, as he had brought none with him, and began to go through a series of choreographed forms.  He had studied Bartitsu casually for 10 years now;  first, at only eight years old, when Mycroft showed him at home, and later, when he was old enough, practicing in the club in London.

He flowed forward, weight remaining on his rear foot, reaching out with the cane to swing at an invisible enemy, free arm held close to his chest.  Head tap.  Body jab.  Feint, step, trip.  The motions were as graceful as dancing, and Sherlock didn’t just practice, he _performed_ , well aware of his attentive spectator.

Sweat gleamed on dawn-lit skin, and as the hour passed, trickled down his sides, the nape of his neck, pooled in the groove of his spine and dampened the thin white pajama bottoms which were the only thing he wore.  When he was finished, he did his series of cool down stretches, making sure that the balcony always got the best angle of his body, spine curved, arms outstretched, every lean, slender, smooth-muscled line of him laid out for appreciation.

He walked over to the small table in the courtyard and picked up a pitcher of water, pouring himself a glass, which he drank in one go, head tilted back and throat bobbing.  Half of what remained in the pitcher he poured over his face and chest, twitching minutely at the cool liquid on overheated skin.  It washed away the sweat, and thoroughly wetted the front of his trousers, the flimsy fabric quickly becoming translucent, clinging to his skin.  Although Sherlock didn’t look, he knew it had molded around his cock, knew that the dark patch of hair was now visible.

He dumped the remainder of the water down his back, sluicing the heat off his shoulders and dousing the remainder of his trousers so that they lay over his buttocks, little more than a film adhering to rounded curves, shadowing the cleft in between.

Sherlock shook his head, dog-like, and sauntered back inside without checking to see if his audience remained on the balcony above.

John waited for him in the small kitchen, empty teacup still clutched between his hands.  He, too, wore nothing more than pajama bottoms.  His chest was softened by crisp hairs, emphasizing the hard mounds of his pectorals, the sharp bones framing his neck.  A quick glance showed Sherlock the burgeoning tumescence between his legs, and his tongue was caught in the corner of his mouth.  “Good morning, Sherlock,” he said, voice gruff from either the early hour or arousal.  

His eyes were glued to Sherlock’s crotch, and Sherlock made sure to cock his head a little, to resettle John’s eyes on his face before he smiled shyly back at him.  “Good morning, sir,” he said quietly.  “You’re up early.”

He had been a guest in John’s house for eight weeks now.  He felt at ease wearing nothing but trousers, as John required, unless they left the dwelling to go to market, or explore the areas outside the city.  He well understood the rules of their interaction now, both stated and inferred.  Sex with John remained… amazing.  Transcendent, even;  and Sherlock would play with the bruises on his arms or hips during the lazy hours of late afternoon, poking to remember the provocative pain of being held down, being guided.  Or simply to recreate the memory of being fucked through the mattress.  Stubble burn on his face and neck, on the delicate skin of his inner thighs, could evoke the same feelings, and Sherlock’s confidence in his body and seductive technique had grown by leaps and bounds.

He knew his morning exercise regime, which he had started back up after only a week in John’s villa, was fascinating to John.  But John had never mentioned that he watched, and Sherlock never let on that he knew, although his movements got more fluid and exhibitionistic as time went on.  Wetting down his trousers was a new move, and Sherlock was curious to see how John would react.

He didn’t have long to wait.  John set the cup down with a clatter and with two quick steps was in Sherlock’s space, staring pointedly down.  “You’re all wet,” he commented, curling warm fingers around Sherlock’s hip.

Sherlock ducked his head, acting shy again.  “Yes, sir,” he answered the unspoken question.  “I was exercising out in the courtyard.  I’ll go-”

John cut him off, grabbing both his hips, thumbs digging into the hollows formed by each jutting bone.  “No,” he said, almost absently.  “No need for that…” he trailed off, and continued to stare.  “Let me…” his grip tightened and then he suddenly lifted Sherlock onto the heavy wooden table behind him.  Surprised, Sherlock lurched forward and snatched at both John’s shoulders, fingers brushing against his raised scar.

John caught Sherlock’s hands and then trapped them, palm-down against the tabletop, pressing hard against knuckles and wrists.  Sherlock deliquesed, familiar warmth languorously filling his body as John leaned into his space, dragged his nose against Sherlock’s damp clavicles, licked at the sweat collected in the hollow of his throat.  Sherlock dropped his head back, letting his moan become a noise of encouragement for John.

John’s fingers pinched the frangible bones of his hands together, and his teeth closed over the muscle of Sherlock’s throat when he deliberately exposed it to John’s view.  “God, Sherlock,” John growled into his skin.  “You taste extraordinary.”

Sherlock smirked and hooked a ladder-backed chair over with one dexterous ankle, positioning it behind John so that he could rest both feet on the back of it, caging John between his legs, thighs tight against John’s ribs up under his arms.  He groaned and began to pant softly as John moved, biting sharply on the lobe of Sherlock’s ear before surging up to take a kiss.

Sherlock opened his mouth to him with a small sound, body relaxing further against John’s.  When John’s tongue stabbed in, Sherlock caught it deftly in his teeth, biting enough to hold it there, laving the bumps of his tastebuds, the silky smooth texture of its underside, before begining a rhythmic suckling that had John’s hips jerking echoing the action.  Sherlock pulled him closer with clenched thighs.

When they broke apart for breath, Sherlock made sure to pant “John, John” sounding mindless and bewildered.  He rubbed his rigid, zealous cock against John’s abdomen, curling himself around the man.

John pulled back for a moment, grinning, blue eyes alight with wicked amusement.  “Good morning, my boy.  God, it’s going to be a good morning, isn’t it?  You’re so.  fucking.   _eager_ , aren’t you.  Do you want it?  Want me?  Want my cock in your arse?”

Sherlock twisted down and bit at the sharp corner of John’s jaw, running his tongue over spiny bristles which had not yet been shaved away.  “Oh, _yes_ , sir,” he stuttered.  “Yes.   _Please_.  Want you to-” he tugged at his hands and John let him free, immediately transferring his grip to the globes of Sherlock’s arse, short fingers sliding around where it met the table, burrowing along the crack, trying to get far enough under to reach his anus.  Sherlock wiggled forward to accommodate him, hooking his arms around John’s shoulders, running greedy fingers through his soft hair, gripping his shoulders, digging fingernails into the muscles of his back, making him grunt into Sherlock’s chest.

“Bed.  Bed,” Sherlock gasped, keeping it breathy and desperate.  “Come on, John.  I need-”  He jerked his hips into John again, the friction against his cock so tortuously satisfying that it surprised an honest, drawn out moan from him.  John took the opportunity to find the locale he’d been questing for, one arm wrapped strongly around Sherlock’s waist, the other fingers seeking his entrance through damp cloth, pushing warmed fabric roughly against that sensitive area.

Sherlock jerked and tightened his grip around John, winding his legs around John’s waist, clinging like one of the monkeys he’d seen in the bazaar.  He pushed back against the finger, dropping his head over John’s shoulder, back deeply hunched to fit himself to John’s shorter stature.  

“Mmmm, good, yeesss.”  Sherlock’s voice had dropped two registers, and it was due to arousal rather than scheming this time.

“I want _this_ ,” John’s voice was rough, and he curved down to bite into the meat just next to Sherlock’s armpit:  sensitive skin which made Sherlock twitch and groan again, dragging his focus momentarily from the two fingers pushing against his center.  “I want to fill your arse, I want you on my bed, want your arse high in the air, opened just for me,”  John’s tenor was gravelly enough to make Sherlock shiver, skin stippling as a wave of heat was quickly chased by a wave of ice.

“Yes, of course, _yes, dammit,_ ” he hissed in return.  He dropped his head back until it hung uncomfortably behind his shoulders, no support.  John closed his lips around the point of Sherlock’s Adam’s apple and sucked, tongue hot and wet and filthy, flat all over his skin.  His fingers seemed determined to enter Sherlock in spite of the damp linen barrier, and Sherlock rolled his hips into the stinging pleasure of the abrasion.  “John.   _John_.”

John pulled him off the counter, nonchalant - held him steady in unassumingly strong arms.  Sherlock braced himself on straining biceps, enjoying the contracted muscle, the bountiful mounded shape filling his palms.  John lowered him fractionally as he strode towards the stairs, allowing their cocks to abut and grind together;  and his hands were surely leaving delicious bruises on Sherlock’s waist.  

Sherlock closed his eyes and thrust his hips, impatiently taking his pleasure and leaving their transportation to John, who had to look around his shoulder in order to see the steps, to lurch down the hall.

He pried Sherlock off beside the bed and took several steps back, staring up at him with darkened eyes.  His expression was a bizarre mixture of fond amusement and possessive lust.  

Sherlock stepped forward but John held up his hand.  “No, Sherlock.  Stay there.  I want to watch you undress.”

There were only the pajamas to remove, held up by a drawstring alone.  Sherlock quickly undid the bow, but the sodden linen did not drop, plastered to his skin.  John ran his hand distractedly across his chest and watched while Sherlock peeled himself out of his clothes, enjoying the power implicit in John’s avid gaze.  He folded himself in half again (which was harder to do with an erection) as he pulled the recalcitrant linen from his skin, bringing the dripping mass slowly down the length of his legs, running the arch of his foot through the curve of his fingers in a  kind of caress as he stripped them off at last, tossing them carelessly aside.

John released a sound that was half rumble of approval, half laugh as Sherlock slowly straightened back up, raising pale arms to tousle his curls, turned slightly sideways to John so that the silhouette of his body could be appreciated in the deeply slanted morning light: the curved handle of his erection balancing the voluptuous swell of his bottom, the jut of his shoulder, the strong length of his leg.  A drop of water slid from his neck past his belly, tracing a protracted, glittering trail along his skin until it vanished in crisp, dark hair.

John dropped his own trousers and then just stood there watching, naked, fingers looped around his cock as if to still its eager flex.  After a brief moment, the two frozen like mannequins in a lewd wax museum, John stepped free of his trousers, widening his stance, and stroked himself slowly, shoulders broad, body trim, confident and forceful, even under his smile.

“Look at you,” he crooned.  “Such an exhibitionist you’ve become.  What kind of monster have I created, mmm?  You like it when I watch, don’t you?”

Sherlock was startled.  He had not expected John to catch on, and certainly had not expected this amusement as a response.  His body lost its contrived pose as he turned a little more towards John.  He could feel a flush bloom under his skin, racing from his cheeks to his ears and spilling down his chest.  He dropped his eyes to John’s hands, one casually tugging at his bollocks as the other squeezed the rubicund head between lazy fingers.

“I like it,” John reassured, grinning and lascivious.  “I want to watch you, Sherlock.  Want to watch you feeling good, making yourself feel good.  Show me what you’d like.”

Sherlock caught his breath on the order, delivered in such an oddly indulgent fashion.

“Go on,” John urged.  “Give me a show, Sherlock.”

There was no option for refusal.

Sherlock let his eyes sweep down.  He could do this.  He _had_ been doing this, actually, honing his skill over the past few weeks, testing to see how responsive John was to his manipulation.  Having John _aware_ that he was performing should not make him as self-conscious as he was feeling.

He ran his fingers lightly up his sides, drawing them together across his chest, fluttering through the sparse hairs there and pinching across small pink nipples.  He looked at John through his lashes, pulling lightly at himself.  John’s mouth had dropped open a bit, tongue sweeping across thin lips.  His own hands had stilled, simply holding his cock and bollocks, attention riveted on Sherlock.

Sherlock shivered, and then… _blossomed_ under the scrutiny.  He angled himself back into the mote-filled spill of sunshine from the balcony doors, turning so that shadows gathered in the secret places on his body and the golden light warmed his pale skin.  He tipped his head back, eyes were half-closed and fixed on John, colorless and blown.  He slid one hand up to his neck, spanning it across his throat, and then clamped down, enough to cut off _some_ air, enough to to add an innervating film to his sight, to send electrifying frissons up and down his body.

John hummed, the tenor of his voice higher pitched than usual, but did not move.

Keeping his hand gripped around his airway, Sherlock lifted one leg with concentrated grace, resting it on the sideboard of the great bed.  His free hand he raised to his mouth, opened slowly, tongue emerging with ceremony, laving his lips before dragging across his palm.  Sherlock sucked on his own fingers, tasting salt and skin.  His cock jerked hard, slapping his belly, when the persistent suction from his busy mouth fired into his brain.  He licked, and sucked, keeping it wet and messy with carefully calculated moans and gasps in between.

John was buying it.  Buying it indiscriminately.  His own tongue was out in a mirroring gesture.  But Sherlock didn’t smirk, he was becoming too lost in his own sensations.

Harsh, strained breathing filled the room, but Sherlock refused to let go of his neck.  He spit a little on his fingers, spearing John with his gaze, and then rubbed it into the emerging head of his cock.  The excess he spread around, dragging his finger around the boundary of his foreskin, tucking the tip of it underneath, groaning at the stretch and the fire.

He only toyed with it for a moment before he had to fall to the mattress, the room beyond John’s face greyed from lack of oxygen.  He arched his back, ribs high, stomach stretched flat and long, only his arse and his shoulders touching the bed, and squeezed along his shaft, keeping the angle of his arm and wrist graceful, rhythmic and lengthened.  He beckoned with his other hand, wheezing a little at the resurgence of air.  “Make it wet, John.”

John immediately approached, bed dipping under his knee.  He took up Sherlock’s arm in both his hands, thumbs pressed against his palm while he sucked long fingers into a shockingly hot mouth.  John scraped his teeth down Sherlock’s fingers, tongue probing the webbing between each one, and narrow strands of saliva dribbled down the back of Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock held tight to the base of his erection, staving off orgasm while John feasted on his fingers, sucking hard and growling.

Sherlock languidly rolled his head to the side, arching his neck and staring up at John, who leered back through eyes blackened by desire.  “Good,” Sherlock murmured, and his voice was like honey-drizzled rust.  “Let me-” he tugged and John let him draw away, seek out the space he created by pulling his heels up to the sideboard of the bed.  He reached immediately for his arsehole, rubbing his thoroughly wet fingers around deliberately before they had even had a chance to cool.  John made a choked off sound, and slithered from the bed to his knees, holding Sherlock’s calves apart, watching as Sherlock jammed two fingers deep inside himself with no other preparation.

Sherlock’s toes curled, his penis jolted, his feet slipped from their perch and were seamlessly transferred to John’s shoulders.  “Go on,” John encouraged in a raspy tone.  “Feels good, yeah?  I bet you’re throbbing in there, wet and soft;  pushing back against your fingers.”  He leaned forward, perforce pushing Sherlock’s knees higher, and nibbled the plump flesh near where Sherlock was thrusting, allowed saliva to trickle from his mouth to the pistoning action, lubricated it even more.

Sherlock held tighter to his cock, damming the tide of semen which was so close to bursting forth.  He whined, pulling out long enough to add a third finger, and John’s tongue was everywhere when he pushed back inside.

John was right.  It was velvety soft within, still smooth from last night’s oil.  Sherlock rubbed around the yielding wall of his passage, seeking the spot which made him jump and ignite.  There, _there_.  Yes.

He gave a garbled sob, pressing little circles into his prostate, when John added his own fingers to the action, stretching Sherlock in what should have been pain but was only registering as deep and dangerous pleasure.  John tugged at him, opening a space to slip his tongue inside, flickering softly against the walls of his rectum, the major knuckles of both their hands, and Sherlock didn’t think he’d ever been spread so wide.  “Ung. Ha-.  John…” he interrupted himself, slim chest heaving with abrupt, vocalized gasps.  “ _More_.”

And John did, pushing in more fingers with a cold smile, before he busied his mouth again at Sherlock’s exceedingly stretched entrance.  Sherlock cried out and released his cock, instantly spasming in an overwhelming torrent of shivers, spattering hot ejaculate from his belly to his chin, pulling and pushing against John’s face and hand, growling and choking, heels digging deep against John’s implacable shoulders.  Two scalding tears fell unnoticed into the bed covering.

Before the aftershocks had even begun John rose, letting Sherlock’s legs fall open to either side of him, thudding gracelessly to the floor.  John swept a hand down Sherlock’s torso, scooping up come that was still warm;  withdrawing his fingers unceremoniously from Sherlock’s body.  He pushed at Sherlock’s limp form, “Get up… on the bed now!  Arse up.”  He sounded desperate.  Ragged.

Sherlock moved, still dazed and mindless with release.  He flopped over and crawled to the other side of the bed before collapsing on face and shoulders, legs spread to make room for John, arse up as commanded.  John followed him closely, delivered two stinging, echoing slaps to his bottom before perfunctorily rubbing his gathered handful of emissions around Sherlock’s gaping, twitching hole and his own cock.

“Gonna fuck you now,” John muttered.  “Jesus, look at your fucking _arse_.”  His cockhead was pushing inside before Sherlock had a chance to even groan, and there was no resistance at all, they’d opened him up so acutely.  John began a driving rhythm immediately, hard and jackrabbit fast, fingers hooked around the crest of Sherlock’s hips, slamming him back into each forward thrust.

Sherlock lay lax, arms loose behind him, not fighting the rocking motion that had his head sliding back and forth along the covers.  His eyes were scarcely cracked open, mouth parted on a sustained, serrated moan.  John felt like fire, blowing him apart, igniting him from inside, and Sherlock thought his flesh could literally melt off, his skin was so fragile and sensitive.  The bristle of John’s pubic hair poked and chafed at his already stubble-burned arse, and Sherlock’s belly was clenching again, bollocks wildly swinging, colliding with John’s, tightening for another round.  With monumental effort, he flipped his wrists and scrabbled at the blanket, letting John do all the work, shuddering with the potential.

John leaned forward, humping ferociously over Sherlock’s back, and scraped blunt fingernails down Sherlock’s chest, catching deliberately on a budded nipple before continuing to claim his still hardened cock.  The other hand twisted in his hair and jerked his head back, straining his neck, sharp pain piquant in the soup of arousal that was his body.  “Don’t come before I do,” John growled.

And then he jerked ungently at Sherlock’s cock and he tightened a grip around to Sherlock’s throat, squeezing hard, relentlessly choking off his air.

Sherlock twitched and floated, buzzing and wild, thinking _Hold on, hold back_ until even thought had receded.  He felt John ram harder, pull harder, felt the shudders that meant he was climaxing, the fervent wail as he did so, the prolonged tremors that confirmed what the spurts of heat deep inside him signaled.

With his orgasm, John’s grip on Sherlock’s throat fell away, and Sherlock barely waited for John’s ground out, “Go, _go_ , Sherlock, come for me-” before he convulsed, silent, mouth wide, sucking in oxygen and bliss.  He felt like the birth of the universe, explosive and expanding, recklessly spinning in the darkness, filled with an overwhelming ecstasy that would not end.  It wouldn’t end, and his cock throbbed and spurted in an exquisite, dazzling agony.

Sherlock was heedless of his body dropping, pressed under John’s weight, he was thrumming in the ether, stretched taut between heaven and hell, a reverberating conduit for current.  He hardly noticed John laying him flat, briefly confirming his breathing before lunging down to lick at his hole, slurping and hot and messy;  cleaning him out with soft and agile tongue, lapping languidly at last, lazy stroking, tongue flicking inside to smooth around the velvet enclosure, nose cool against the cleft of his buttocks.

He rolled passively when John turned him, eyes open but glazed, dazedly watching John’s face, haloed by hair made golden by the sun.  John vanished for a moment, but reappeared with a warm wet cloth, reverently bathing Sherlock’s skin, soft and comforting across his strained and swollen neck, pressing gently against bruises and abrasions, sweeping down his come-crusted belly, delving into every crevice.

Sherlock reveled in the pampering, thinking of it as a service;  thinking that while he hadn’t kept control throughout, he yet had the potential for it.  Control of himself _and_ control of John.  

All he needed was time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur Conan Doyle accidentally wrote (in the Empty House) that Sherlock studied the martial art of Baritsu, when actually the name was Bartitsu.  [Here](http://mojoflower.tumblr.com/post/80061015214/bartitsu-the-martial-art-of-sherlock-holmes) is a video about the history of it, and [here](http://mojoflower.tumblr.com/post/80061086138/bartitsu-misspelled-by-a-c-doyle-as-baritsu-in) is one showing one of the forms that Sherlock was practicing.


	4. You'll Find Your Servant is Your Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been such a ride, and I just want to thank you all for being patient while I floundered for more than a few months.   **All the love and thanks to**[ **scienceofobsession**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/pseuds/ScienceofObsession) **and**[ **snogandagrope**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope) , who helped cut out all superfluous verbiage and reminded me of what body part was where at all the right times, straightened out my vacillating POV and generally made my life miserable in order to make this fic a thing of beauty.  It would be a hot mess without them, that’s for sure.  See endnotes for my evaluation on whether or not I followed the song.

There was nothing outside the dusty windows of the train but sand and the occasional palm.  They had passed some pyramids a while back, and Sherlock stared at the napkin in front of him, where he'd sketched them:  barren triangles looming out of an endless expanse of desert.  He was alone in his car.  Mycroft had paid for the ticket and then suddenly had to go deal with some trouble which arose in the Sudan.  Sherlock would reach Alexandria in another eight hours, and then to the boat, beginning the long journey back to England.

He fastidiously used the napkin to wipe some stray soot from his wrist, an unsurprising development considering the heavy black smoke which often billowed down the sides of the train.  His sketch now ruined, he crumpled the bit of paper and placed it at the edge of the table, ready for an attendant to come clean it up.

He sighed, steepling his fingers under his chin, elbows carelessly propped on either side of the straw hat he’d put on the table.  He stared unseeing as the monotonous scenery slid by, lulled into a trance by the continuing clacking of the wheels as they rolled along the track.  A small cavalcade of camels swept by, the men atop them swaddled in fabric that was considerably more dull than the adornments on their beasts.  A vulture kept pace with the train for a while before veering sharply off.  Sherlock tipped his head back on the plush seat and closed his eyes.

He had the top three buttons of his linen shirt undone, loosely draped cravat catching against the silk of his waistcoat;  but in spite of that, sweat still collected in the hollow of his neck, spilling over to trickle down his chest, gluing fabric to sultry skin.  It felt strange to be wearing so many clothes, again.  He'd spent the past three months dressed in nothing more than trousers, and the stifling confinement of waistcoat, tie, jacket, boots and hat were an adjustment he was resentful to be making.

But the summer was over.  Mycroft had come back through, and John's wife Mary was due to return from her summer-long visit to a friend in Luxor.

John had seemed to find it very difficult to watch Sherlock go.  His face had been atypically frozen and expressionless when he'd dropped Sherlock off at the hotel.  Sherlock had watched him closely when he'd extended his hand in farewell.  John's eyes were drawn tight at the corners.  His mouth was turned down, and he'd had to leave off twisting the band of gold around his finger before he could shake hands.

“Sherlock-” he'd begun.

But Sherlock cut him off.  “I'll just be off, then, John.”  He nodded his head decisively.  “It's been most... enlightening... spending the summer with you.  Thank you for your investment.”

John had looked at him oddly at that, but Sherlock had merely smirked.  “I'll be in touch,” he had told John, and then spun on his heel and strode into the atrium of the building, not looking back until he was deep within the lobby, glimpsing John's motorcar pulling away from the drive, nosing its way between pedestrians and animals before it vanished around a bend.  Sherlock had clenched his hands by his side, and then stepped to the desk to ask which room his brother Mycroft had taken.

Mycroft had been supremely unconcerned, even disinterested, upon hearing about what Sherlock had done with his summer, so Sherlock volunteered little information, and life quickly assumed its old pace.

A week later, on the steamship, Sherlock watched the busy port of Alexandria recede until all he could see was the blue of the ocean and the puffy white clouds that chased each other across the sky.  He tugged at the itchy neckline of tweed across his collarbones and, for the first time, thought longingly of England’s cooler air, of the damp way a chill fog lay across his skin and beaded tiny droplets on his eyelashes.  It would be good to get home.

* * *

“My name is Mrs. Hudson,” the woman said as she held open the door to 221B Baker Street.  “Would you like to come in and look around?”

Sherlock eeled past the door and bowed over her hand, an act carefully calculated to make her simper and blush.  Two minutes in, still standing in the sitting room, he'd already decided he had to have the flat.  

“-the old lodgers have only been gone for a week,” the woman was saying.  “I've got a bit of tidying up to do before you can move in, but once that's done...” and she gave him the firm, no nonsense look his own mother had mastered, “please don't forget that I am _not_ your housekeeper.”

“Of course not,” Sherlock rumbled.  “I'll take it.”

Mrs. Hudson looked surprised.  “Would you like to see the upstairs bedroom-”

“I'll take it.”

* * *

One of the first things Sherlock did, once his belongings had been delivered from the old family estate in Sussex and set up in the new lodgings, was sit at the table in the kitchen to write a letter to John.  It was short, and to the point, containing not much more than a proposition which Sherlock was intrigued to see if John would accept.

After that, following a bit of advice from John just prior to his departure, he wandered down to Scotland Yard and made it his mission to hang about, butting into their cases, until Inspector Lestrade gave up and said dammit, he could be a Consulting Detective, but he'd better not expect much in the way of compensation.

That suited Sherlock just fine.

A month later, he turned 19, and that same week, got a letter back from John.  He smiled broadly when he read it, and twirled his cane in an irrepressible expression of satisfaction when he walked back to the Yard later that afternoon.

Everything was going according to plan.

* * *

When the hollow clatter of the knocker finally echoed throughout the flat, it had been another five months, and London was hunkered down for the long, wet winter.  Sherlock stood at his front window, violin resting against his chin and shoulder, but bowing arm lax against his side.  He listened to Mrs. Hudson answering the door and the response from a voice he’d certainly not forgotten.  Two sets of feet mounted the stairs, both demonstrating the uneven gait of a limp.  Mrs. Hudson and -

“John,” he greeted coolly, turning slowly, aware of the picture he presented against the reflective window, the dark, gas-lit street of London behind him, firelight reflecting warmly off his scarlet dressing gown, the softly polished wood of his instrument shining and then dimmed as he set it aside on his desk.  “How nice to finally see you again.”

John stood awkwardly behind Mrs. Hudson, leaning slightly on his cane, heavy overcoat an odd contrast to his deeply tanned face.  Sherlock strode forward, dressing gown billowing behind him, and Mrs. Hudson stepped aside so that he could greet John properly, long fingers curling around John’s outstretched hand.

“Sherlock!”  John’s face curved into a genuine smile.  “And so nice to see you likewise.  You’re looking fit, aren’t you, fit indeed.  Thank you so much for inviting me.”

Sherlock smirked, as he knew well he had issued more than a simple invitation.  “You’re always welcome, John,” he said, and turned to Mrs. Hudson.  “Mrs. Hudson, may I introduce Dr. John Watson, your new lodger.  He’ll be taking the bedroom upstairs.”

Mrs. Hudson twittered predictably, and cooed when John bent to kiss her wrinkled hand.  She departed then for tea and tray of comestibles, and Sherlock shut the lounge door smartly behind her.

He turned again to look at John - it was so bizarre to see him bundled up for the cold, nothing but his face visible, hat pulled low against the weather.  “Allow me,” Sherlock said, holding out his hand for gloves, scarf and hat.  John was slowly revealed from under the weight of wool:  hands, wrists, ears and neck all as Sherlock remembered.  He turned the man around a bit, easing his greatcoat off his shoulders, and simply could not stop himself from stooping to press his lips against the back of John’s neck.  “I’m glad you came,” he said, and was startled and chagrined at his own honesty.

John turned with a smile and said, uncomfortable with his own candor, “Well, there wasn’t much for me there, was there?”

Discomfited with the gentle intimacy of the moment, Sherlock jolted John forwards, crashing him against his chest, and then swooped down to claim a rough kiss, which John eagerly dove into.  Time had not diminished the fire between them, the incendiary energy when they came together, and John’s mouth was hot around his tongue, his teeth hard and predatory against his lip.  Sherlock bit back, fingers digging into John’s shoulders, pulling him in more closely, allowed his teeth to sink into John’s lip, scrape against his tongue, suckling hard as his cock came to life between his legs.

John made a noise, a drawn out, muffled groan, and with a clatter he dropped his cane; his hands came up to thread through Sherlock’s hair, gripping and twisting at his curls, his body pushing against Sherlock’s own, tugging him down to John’s height.  Sherlock mumbled nonsense in response, kissing his way along John’s jaw, nipping at the spot behind his ear, hands locking around his neck, thumbs tipping back his jaw to expose his throat to Sherlock’s moving mouth.  They were so deeply involved with licking and sucking and sighing that they hardly noticed the footfalls outside the door until a brisk knock broke them apart, pulling back guiltily, putting space between their bodies.

Mrs. Hudson pushed her way in, large tea tray balanced between her hands, and Detective Lestrade loomed over her shoulder.  “Sherlock!” he said, excited and impatient, not really seeming to notice either the landlady or Sherlock’s guest.  “They’ve found another.  Would you come with me?”

“Where is it?” Sherlock asked, taking the tray from Mrs. Hudson, plunking it without grace onto the table, and shooing her from the room with a series of vividly insensitive gestures.

“A woman.  She was found in a house in Lauriston Gardens.  I’ve got a police cab waiting.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose.  “I’ll get a hackney, thank you, and follow along behind.”  He herded Lestrade from the room and then turned suddenly to look at John, as if surprised to still see him there.  “John, you may sit and wait, if you’d like.”

John nodded and headed for the sofa, face set in poorly concealed disappointment.  Sherlock bounded after him, taking a cushion and tossing it onto the floor next to the coffee table.  “John,” he smirked.  “I think you’ll be more comfortable here.”  He leaned down again, sliding his hand around the back of John’s head and pulling it up for a hard kiss, slipping his thigh between John’s, other hand firm on the small of John’s back, pulling him in.  “It suits you,” he murmured, voice low and rusty.

John’s eyes were dark, pupils blown in the gaslight, and Sherlock licked his lips in anticipation.  “Go on,” he said.  “Get down and wait.”

Slowly, John did, never breaking their gaze.  Sherlock watched him closely for signs of discomfort or hesitation, but saw none.  John used one hand for support on the sofa as he lowered himself to his knees on the cushion, and his head tilted further and further back the lower he sank.  Sherlock hummed in approval when he’d settled, running his hand from John’s forehead to his nape, petting him, pleased.  “I won’t be long,” he promised.

“I certainly hope not,” was John’s dry rejoinder, and Sherlock couldn’t help but laugh.  He used the hand on the back of John’s neck to pull him tight against the crotch of his trousers, rolling his hips against the bones of his face, and John made a muffled moan, the sound expressed in a searing humid breath through the fabric of his trousers, before Sherlock released him.

Moving to the door, he swung himself into his caped greatcoat and flung himself down the steps, making sure to close the door behind him.

Once he waved down a hackney, however, he paused with one foot in the carriage and the other still on the ground.  He bit his lip and cast his eyes to the side, thinking.

“Wait here a moment,” he ordered the driver, and pivoted on his heel to dash back into the flat before the man had even had a chance to nod.  When he threw the door open, his gaze landed immediately on John, who had startled, and was risen slightly off his heels, eyes wide.

“John,” Sherlock said breathlessly, and John relaxed back down, one hand rubbing absently at his knee.  “You’re a doctor.”

John nodded, looking confused.  

“And a good one, I presume.”

John nodded again.

“Seen a lot of injuries, then? Violent deaths?”

“Well, yes.”

“Bit of trouble too, I know.”

John raised both eyebrows and the corners of his mouth lifted in the precursor to a smile.  “Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.”

Sherlock smirked down at him.  John’s eyes were alight, his cheeks flushed with an emotion beyond sexual arousal.  Sherlock could see something new growing behind the shifting lines of his face, and his own heart beat faster in rapport.  He drew in an adrenaline-laced breath.  “Want to see some more?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

Thus John was drawn from the room in Sherlock’s wake, thrust into the current of Sherlock’s life, and Sherlock felt more alive than he had since Marrakech, running through the city with John at his heels.  The next several hours were exhilarating.

* * *

They got home well after midnight, laughing and high from the combination of peril and excitement.  The case had gone well, they’d worked together like two specially fitted gears, and Sherlock couldn’t have been more delighted.

Sherlock considerately helped John with his coat and imperiously gestured him back to his cushion, where he sank down without protest, eyeing Sherlock, appearing eager to see what the young man would do.

Sherlock left him there, gliding to the kitchen to set the kettle, hanging his own coat and scarf and tossing his hat onto a corner table.  John stayed quiet and passive in the lounge, waiting for Sherlock’s return.

* * *

Sherlock returned with two cups of tea and set them both carefully on the table, the dull thunk of them loud in the quiet room.  It was late, no activity on the street outside, and the gas lights had been turned off at midnight.  The fire was beginning to die down, the room dancing on the edge of warm light.  Sherlock sat on the edge of the low table facing John, who looked up at him with a face that seemed deliberately masked in calm.  Highlit next to the shadow in the hollow of his throat, his skin fluttered rapidly over his pulse, and his eyes were huge and luminous with interest.  Sherlock smiled faintly and placed his hand around John’s neck, fingers curled into his nape, thumb pressing over that accelerated pulse.  

“Tell me about my letter, John,” he murmured, letting his voice drop into the deeper register he’d noticed had such an effect on the other man.  He pressed a little harder with his thumb, and then stroked up to the rough stubble along the cord of his neck, the hard line of his jaw, the mobile, thin strip of his lip.  “Why did you come here?”

John looked down, and Sherlock was caught for a moment in his eyelashes:  so blond they were almost white, thick and straight and long, they swept down to cast shadows over his cheeks.  He cleared his throat, the sound sharp-edged and jarring in the quiet oasis of their lounge, and then sighed.  “You were right about Mary,” he said.  And if Sherlock weren’t so elated at having John at his knee, he might have spared a moment in sympathy to the cuckolded man.  However, it wasn’t like John hadn’t been unfaithful to Mary as well.  Although, of course, he couldn’t have been impregnated with Sherlock’s child, so the parallel ended there.

“I filed paperwork for a divorce, left her the house there, to raise the bastard.”  He pursed his lips and slid them to the side, face so extraordinarily fluid and fascinating.  “She didn’t fuss.”

Sherlock hadn’t thought that she would.  The house in Marrakech had been filled with tell-tale clues of their failed marriage, of the man Mary had been seeing on the side, of the evidence of her burgeoning pregnancy.  She had not gone to visit a friend in Luxor, that was clear.  And every move John made, the comments he forgot to censor, the pattern of papers on his desk and clothing in his wardrobe spoke of a man who felt trapped and unloved.  Unneeded.

“I thought of your… conditions…”  John trailed off, and Sherlock tunneled his fingers into John’s short hair, the grays glinting in the light, and pressed his head down to his knee.  John relaxed as if in relief, not having to face Sherlock as he spoke.  “I thought I could try that.  For a while.”

“Tell me what conditions you’re agreeing to,” Sherlock pressed, stroking through John’s hair.  He needed to hear John say it.  To acknowledge it out loud.  In a way, it was a triumph, turning the tables of the summer dynamic they’d established, and Sherlock smirked to have become the victor.  Alternately, based more on the connection that he’d formed with the man, it was a need to acquiesce to their true feelings, the relationship they were meant to have, one where they could both relax and expose themselves without fear of censure.  Sherlock needed to _hear_ that.  Needed to know that John understood.

“I have to grant you mastery of me,” John muttered, body tensed under Sherlock’s long fingers.  He was having trouble with the words.  “You said… that if I came here, I had to… surrender myself to you.  That if I wanted this, your home would be open, and…”

“And I’ll take care of _you_ , John,” Sherlock said, when John trailed off and did not seem inclined to continue.  “I’ll care for you, just like you did for me this past summer.  I learned a lot,” and his voice was warm with laughter.  “... learned a lot from you.  I want a chance to … put it into practice.  For the servant, as it were, to become the master.  If you will, John.  If you will.”

John lifted his face, skin so pale behind his tan, so washed of color that it was alabaster, eyes huge and conflicted.  He took a deep breath, caught in the intensity of Sherlock’s silvered stare, and then turned his head so that his face was pressed into the lean muscle of Sherlock’s thigh, the humid air of his sigh heating the skin there.  Sherlock ran his fingers down into John’s collar, bumping over the knobs of his spine.

John watched Sherlock for a moment, gaze considering and calculating before it smoothed out into serenity.  He had made a decision.  “I will,” he promised.

“Very well,”  Sherlock sat back and nudged John off his leg, handing him his tea.  “Very well then.  Let us begin.”  He clinked his mug to John’s, and then felt very awkward for a moment, unsure, feeling his age, his inexperience, and blood began to rise in his cheeks.  But John merely smiled, eyelashes flickering gold in the reflection of the fire, and drank very deliberately.

* * *

Sherlock broke off pieces of the shortbread biscuits from the tin at his elbow and fed them slowly to John, who opened his mouth self-consciously to accept each bite.  Sherlock read the numerous expressions flashing across his face, watched his skin shift and fold as he chewed, saw his unique nose twitch and the flush rise across his neck.  Intrigued by the last, he unbuttoned John’s shirt, spidering down John’s chest with cool, firm fingers, chasing the blush down to his pectorals, to probe the thick, keloidal skin that shaped the scar on his shoulder.

John swallowed the last bite and sat back on his heels, tongue flicking out to catch a lingering crumb, straightening his back against Sherlock’s exploratory hands.  His eyes were down, watching as Sherlock swept through the fur of his chest, stopping to circle pert nipples, to pinch one tightly between finger and thumb.

When John gasped, Sherlock said, “Eyes on me, John,” and he did:  as easy as sliding into water, he responded to Sherlock’s command, and Sherlock rewarded him with by twisting the pebble of flesh in his fingers until John released a muffled moan, lifted his body forward off his heels, pushing against the small pain that Sherlock was inflicting.  He tugged until the flesh of John’s chest was tented out around the pink bud, and John tossed his head and shuddered under Sherlock’s hands.

Sherlock hummed, the sound soft and deep, and set the tea cups and biscuit tin aside.  “John,” he said gravely.  “I want you undressed.  Naked at my feet.”

And John sucked in a breath, hands fisting and opening at his thighs in rapid succession.  Sherlock watched his throat, could physically _see_ the sudden increase in John’s heartbeat.  He stood slowly, stretching the limber line of his body to full height, and sauntered to his chair, placed at an angle to the fireplace.  He sat with a certain regal poise, and it wasn’t faked, his confidence.  He could read in John everything he needed:  John’s lust for him, John’s _need_ , John’s titillation at the command.  He could practically watch the nerves travel from his nipple to his cock, and the bulge there was unmistakable.

Sherlock leaned back into the velvet of his wing-backed chair and spread his legs nonchalantly, carelessly disposed, but with no less deliberation for all that.  He was very aware of the picture he presented, with his hair tousled on his forehead and against his nape, his collar undone just enough to expose the arch of his neck and the delicate lines of his collarbones.  His legs sprawled, dominating and relaxed, and his forearms lay along the rests of the chair, fingers curled, long and white, around the ends.  He lifted one arm and languidly beckoned behind him, where John was now hidden over his shoulder.  “Do it here, John.  And bring your cushion.”

Sherlock wanted mastery, but he had no intention of damaging John’s dodgy leg;  the cushion was essential.  John walked over, set the cushion on the floor between Sherlock’s outstretched legs and then stood before the fire, stance strong and military.  Sherlock could see that he was bracing himself.  For what, he couldn’t imagine.  They’d certainly seen one another naked before.  “Eyes on me,” Sherlock reiterated.

Challengingly, John stared at him as he unbuttoned his waistcoat and the remainder of his shirt, jerking it free of his trousers.  He was efficient and bold, tossing each item of clothing over the other armchair as he pulled it free:  waistcoat, shirt, boots and stockings, trousers and undergarments.  Finally he was bare to Sherlock’s devouring gaze… exposed and unburdened, and Sherlock licked his own lips, mirroring John’s habitual gesture.

The body before him was perhaps small, but broadcast contained, thundering strength, muscles still hard in spite of the fact that he was out of the service;  posture proud and unyielding, the shiny skin of his scar attesting to his courage and drive.  His penis was pointed straight up, eager and unashamed.  It flexed against his stomach, and the firelight caught on the strand of fluid that briefly connected the two.

Sherlock’s skin heated pink, he could feel it, could feel the electricity of his arousal zinging across his arms and legs, lifting the soft hairs and plumping his veins.  His heart constricted and commenced beating even faster, lust and fear warring in his heart until his palms grew hot and damp.  He could do this, though, he knew he could.  He’d envisioned it for months now, how it would feel to control John at last, to bridle him, to have that power and dedication to order as he saw fit.  He wanted it badly, and knew John would want it, too.  Had been sure enough, in fact, of John’s feelings that he’d written and sent that fateful letter those months ago.

John waited, the tic of his clenching fists revealing his disquiet.  Sherlock turned to the table at his elbow and lazily poured himself a whiskey from the decanter there.  He unbuttoned a few more buttons of his shirt and tipped his head back, shaking curls off his overheated forehead and staring at John across the luminous reflection of his own cheekbones.  He waited, fingers tapping on the glass, before taking a slow sip.  Sherlock had always known the power of a pause, the seduction of making a man wait, although he’d never applied it to a sexual situation before.

A flush was sinking across John’s chest, filtering down as if pulled by gravity, and his erection continued to jump, echoing the twitching of the large muscles of his thighs.  Sherlock decided he had waited long enough and finally gestured him to the cushion between his knees.  “Sit,” he said, striving to keep his voice smooth and steady, to not reveal his uncertainty.

John lowered himself before the chair without hesitation, and smoothed his hands from Sherlock’s knees to ankles as though he thought Sherlock needed gentling.  His eyes softened as he looked up, and he said, as if to help Sherlock by giving him a suggestion, “What do you want me to do, Sherlock?”

Sherlock leaned forward abruptly, dropping his empty glass to the side, where its fall was muffled by the thick carpet.  He curled his hand around John’s jaw, and his fingers were long enough to extend beyond his ear, to fit against the swell of his occipital bone.  He thumbed under John’s chin, stroking the rough stubble there, the soft drape of skin older and more weathered than Sherlock’s own, bumping across the ridge of bone to approach his mouth and then pulling gently at a finely-cut bottom lip.

John relaxed, allowing him to pull at yielding flesh, letting his jaw drop enough to grant Sherlock ingress, and Sherlock probed into the humid heat of his mouth, pressing against sharp central incisors and pulling downwards, chasing the enticing muscle of his tongue when he licked out at Sherlock’s invading digit.  John stared up at him, eyes fathomless pools of indigo, and closed his mouth around Sherlock’s thumb, holding it still with his delicate bite, sucking and licking at the tip until Sherlock gasped, and the heat in his belly compressed into his cock, lifting it to push against his trousers.  His own lips parted, and John jerked closer to him with an audible groan, suckling harder, and his hands gripped around Sherlock’s ankles like they were anchors.

Panting and a bit too hurried to be altogether graceful, Sherlock fumbled with his trousers one-handed, attempting to unbutton the flies.  The air felt dry and harsh in his mouth, and would have recalled the climate of Morocco if not for the heavy flavor of firewood smoke that came along with it.  He jumped when John lifted a hand to wrap it around Sherlock’s, preventing him from continuing.  He gave Sherlock’s thumb a last nip before drawing back to speak.  “Sherlock,” he crooned.  “Let me.”

Sherlock heaved in a shuddering breath, wrestling himself for his own control, forgetting to be a spectator to their scene, forgetting to arrange himself with authority and nonchalance.  John waited calmly until Sherlock fisted his other hand in John’s hair and nodded.  “Suck it, John,” he demanded hoarsely, his register so low and gravelly that the words were hard to make out.

John shuddered and growled, laying open Sherlock’s trousers and pulling his cock free of its nest of fabric.  Hot hands, small and deft and hard, pressed at his groin, thumbs cupped below his bollocks and fingers framing the root of his erection.  John kept eye contact as he rose to his knees and bent forward, breathing against sensitive skin while Sherlock’s penis bounced with agitation, jerking forward to bang against John’s lips, craving entry.

John licked teasingly at the head, tonguing the foreskin down to reveal the frenulum and then enthusiastically mouthing it, busy and stimulating, and Sherlock couldn’t stop his hips from lifting, hands shaped into claws digging into the armrests of his chair, head thrown back to stare blindly at the ceiling.  John massaged his perineum, touch frustratingly light through the layers of fabric, and continued to focus on the head of Sherlock’s penis, gasping as he worked, and the wash of each exhale ran cool across thin, saliva-coated skin, only to be reheated by the surround of John’s mouth.

Sherlock held himself tight to the chair by virtue of his frantic grip on the arms, and his thighs trembled as he tried to thrust, inhibited by the press of John’s hands, the insistent digging of John’s thumbs deep between his legs.  “John,” he ground out at last, and John dipped his head down in response, sliding down the length of his cock until it pushed against the back of his throat, until Sherlock could feel the wall of his tonsils, the deliberate contractions of his soft palate.

Sherlock’s breath left him in a rush;  he was whirling in the deep pulsations that signaled the onset of his orgasm, and he released the chair to grab John’s throat, felt the bulging there of his own cock, and almost lost the willpower to push John away.  But he didn’t want to come now - he had plans.  He tightened his fingers and slowly pushed John back, reveling in the glazed glimmer of his eye, the spit and precome that slid down his chin.  They sat frozen, staring at each other, the only movement in the room the flickering shadows cast by firelight, the only sound the occasional crackle or settling of logs.

“Go wait for me in my bedroom,” Sherlock commanded.  And if his voice seemed scratchy, it didn’t seem to bother John.  John pushed himself up and one of his joints popped loudly in the quiet of the room.  John smirked, looking down at Sherlock’s surprised expression.  “Cushions,” he muttered, but it didn’t sound angry, more… fond.  He turned and strode through the kitchen, sliding around the table to disappear in the back, and Sherlock watched him go, caught by the bunching muscles of his arse, the tantalizing glimpse of heavy bollocks, the straight back that spoke of integrity and security right to the depths of Sherlock’s lonely heart.

Sherlock followed after the few moments he took simply to regain his composure, to draw his strategy around himself again like armor.  He had spent the summer studying, dammit.   _Literally_ at the feet of this man.  And he was determined to turn it all on its head.

He lit a lamp using a straw from the fireplace and slowly moved back to his bedroom.  The darkness parted in front of the warm circle of light provided by the small lamp, and John seemed to solidify before his eyes, ghostly skin and bones arranged at parade rest, as he shut the door behind himself with a click.  Sherlock carelessly set the lamp on a shelf and strode confidently to stand in front of John.  He put his hands on shoulders narrower than his own (but more experienced, proven capable of bearing burdens that Sherlock could not yet dream of) and slowly moved them down to John’s fingertips before falling away.  

Curious, he let his hand follow his eyes, tracing the line of clavicle, the shadow and relief of light across the topography of John’s body.  He probed the twisted scar on John’s shoulder, ran careful fingers across the expansion and collapse of his ribs as he breathed, measuring the capacity of his lungs.  He pressed his palm against John’s heart and twisted long pale fingers in the mat of grey-shot hair on his chest, studying the marks that so many more years in the world had written across John’s body.  John licked his lips, patient and oddly understanding, at ease as Sherlock explored.  The hair cradling his cock was darker, a distinct brown in the dim light, and there was not a gray hair to be seen there.  Sherlock ran his fingers through it, beguiled by the crinkly texture, the small hitch in John’s breath, the jolt of his body as Sherlock cupped his bollocks, tugged experimentally on the sac.

He guided John to turn around, repeated his exploration with John’s back, taking in the exit wound from the war, other small scars marking the broad wash of skin, filling his hands with the taut curve of John’s buttocks.  “Bend over,” he said, and John did, bracing himself on his hands against the mattress, legs still planted shoulder-width apart.

Sherlock knelt behind him.  This would be a first, and his curiosity surpassed his arousal for a moment.  He wrapped his hands around John’s thighs, appreciating the strength there, the hard, fur-covered muscle, the sturdy line from hip to foot, even the precision and balance with which John propped himself against the bed, his back a straight line, arse presented with no appearance of doubt.  He said nothing, but widened his stance a fraction, and Sherlock watched his bollocks swing in the shadow between his legs.  

He probed the cleft with his fingers, rubbing the tight skin between anus and scrotum.  He could hear John’s breaths, even and controlled, feel the crinkle of hair brushing across his knuckles, tickling the back of his hand.  Sherlock opened him up, leaned a bit to the side to allow the lamplight to disperse the shadow between the mounds of John’s arse, reflecting off shining hairs and revealing the round bud of John’s center.  Sherlock rubbed against it with his thumb, focused on the strength and quiver of John’s body, on the resistance of his flesh, on the ragged edges of John’s gasp.  Pulling John wider apart, he leaned forward and licked into the crease between his thumbs, absorbing the texture, the heat, the musky flavor of the man before him.  John gasped again, almost a whine, and Sherlock had to hold hard to resist the inward clench of gluteus muscles.  He licked again, a broad stroke, leaving saliva in his wake, nose brushing the thin skin covering his sacrum.

Sherlock stayed attentive at John’s arsehole for several minutes, assiduous in his study, cataloging John’s reactions and his own, content to feel the gradual unfurling of the crinkled flesh under his lips, until he could at last press his tongue inside, pinched tight by the ring of muscle it probed, drilling into the very core of John, hotter even than the inside of Sherlock’s mouth.  John moaned and jerked around him, and Sherlock impatiently slapped at his arse before holding it open once again, twisting his tongue through wet hairs, boring inside with insistence, feeling the soft press of John’s inner walls and the shaking of his body.

But.  Although John’s reactions were intriguing, and while Sherlock wanted to pursue them from an academic standpoint, he found himself… unsure.  This was all part of his plan, part of the scene he’d been playing in his mind since John had replied to his letter.  The game was on, and the game was to fuck John hard, to wring him out and leave him to dry.  And yet, Sherlock’s erection was flagging, the sizzling heat under his skin abating and he felt unsatisfied.  He launched himself to his feet and angrily wiped his hand across the lower half of his face, wiping away his own spit and glaring down at John’s bent back.

He slapped him again, watching the shimmer of the impact shiver outwards from where he hit, and John’s grunt did nothing but confuse him.  A few more smacks, and John’s arse glowed gently red, the long lines of Sherlock’s fingers painted onto his skin.  But the more Sherlock hit, the less aroused he felt, the more confused.  He reached around John’s hip, spidering through the hairs on his belly to measure the strength of his erection.  It seemed less enthusiastic than before, and Sherlock drew back a moment to regroup.

“Stand up, John,” he said after he’d drawn a few deep breaths.  John turned immediately, responsive and attentive, hands relaxed by his sides.  Careful scrutiny of his face revealed all the typical signs of arousal:  lips parted, tongue resting on his teeth, flushed cheeks and blown pupils.  But Sherlock thought that passivity did not suit him.  He wiped his hand across his mouth once again and then dropped his arms.  “Undress me, John.”  He hesitated a beat too long and failed to sound quite as imperious as he’d intended.  “Touch me.”

John swayed toward him immediately, and hummed approval under his breath, the sound morphing into murmured words that Sherlock could not discern.  John started at his jaw, thumbs tracing the cut of his mastoid and fingers combing through the curls at his nape.  Before Sherlock could blink, John pushed onto his toes and kissed him, hands gently curved around his skull, urging him down into the kiss.  He pushed his tongue into John’s mouth, abstractly noting the difference in access to the orifice he’d worked on earlier.  John’s mouth was open, accepting, alive and moving against his own, _interactive_ , and Sherlock sank into the experience, relishing the communication, the back and forth dialog they could conduct with tongue and lip alone.

John dropped back down onto his heels and smoothed his palms across Sherlock’s chest, catching in the V of his shirt and quickly dealing with the remaining buttons.  He pushed the garment off Sherlock’s arms and it fell behind him on the floor, unheeded.  John swayed close again, mouth damp on his chest, brushing lightly across his flesh, a nibble here, a lingering stroke of the tongue there, lips pulling at his nipple only to slip to the side to bite near his armpit.  Gooseflesh pebbled in John’s wake, and Sherlock began to sink into a dizzying, wanton fog, relaxing into John’s touch, the calloused fingertips that stroked and pushed and pulled at him until he was naked as well, John kneeling on the floor with Sherlock’s drawers in his hands.  

John dropped the warm bit of linen to the side and then pressed his face to Sherlock’s thighs, the hair on his head teasing against Sherlock’s cock, his teeth scraping delicate lines into the fair skin of Sherlock’s leg.  “Now what, Sherlock,” John prompted, voice cracking.  “What will you have me do for you?  To you?”  He licked a line up the join of Sherlock’s thighs, until his bollocks rested on John’s upraised chin.  John breathed and stared and moved his head so that Sherlock’s testicles rolled across his chin and onto his lips.

Sherlock couldn’t answer, his chest was too tight, his throat paralyzed.  But his hands knew what he wanted, pushing at John’s jaw until it dropped open, and his bollocks fell against the soft wet curve of John’s bottom lip, to be immediately traced by his tongue, that damnable tongue, always peeking out, so eager for contact with Sherlock’s body.  John spread his fingers wide across Sherlock’s arse, pinkies wedged into the crease against his thighs, and he sucked in both bollocks at once, jaw salaciously extended to accommodate them.  Sherlock ground his teeth against his moan when John began to suck, braced himself against John’s shoulder when he felt the flat of John’s tongue laving against him, and his cock was painfully blood-filled.  Sherlock pressed his thumbs against the corners of John’s eyes, holding his head steady as his jaw worked.  He had to widen his legs against the pressure of John’s mouth, dropping until his hips were rolling against John’s face, and he wished he could get even closer.

He slid a finger into John’s mouth for a reason, but forgot it in the movement of John’s tongue, the hard push of his lips, conformed to protect Sherlock’s sensitive bits from sharp teeth.  But he recalled himself to his purpose and pulled down until John’s mouth was wide again, and Sherlock could pull himself free.  He tangled his hand in John’s short hair and pulled him upwards.  “Lie down on the bed,” he gasped, urgent.

John flung himself backwards, wiggled himself up until he was arranged full length, and folded his arms under his head, waiting.  His smile was wicked, but also gentle, and Sherlock’s gaze skittered away from that knowing expression - down his heaving chest, burnished with sweat, and further down to the red head of his cock, fighting to pull completely free of its foreskin.  John waited.  Bold.  Infuriating.

Sherlock climbed onto the bed projecting a languor he did not feel, swung a knee over John’s legs and knelt there, hands pressed against John’s chest.  He smirked at John, determined to wrest back control, allowed his lips to part and teased the pointed end of his tongue against the dip of his upper lip.  John’s eyes dilated before him, his own tongue unconsciously imitating the movement of Sherlock’s.  Sherlock began a slow knee-walk up John’s body, fingers moving from chest to shoulders.  “I want you to open me up,” he decided, and pulled hard on John’s shoulders, scooting him down the mattress to make room for Sherlock’s knees, now on either side of his face, “with your mouth, John.  I want your tongue inside me.”

John rumbled his assent, reverently sweeping his hands up Sherlock’s calves, skimming over the ample curve of his buttock, framing his waist.  Sherlock sighed and shuddered in anticipation, sliding his knees further apart so he could slowly sink down over John’s head.  There was shuffling on the mattress behind him, but he didn’t turn around to see what John was doing, only reached forward to grab at the headboard with both hands, trying to see around his cock and his bollocks to John’s face, burning with the puff of each breath between his thighs.

John teased him apart, hands firm between the globes of his arse, and tugged him closer until he felt the push of John’s mouth, pursing lips and probing tongue.  Sherlock tossed his head, nipples pricking into tight knots, fingers spasming against the iron of the bed frame.  John pulled him in, settled him down, and Sherlock felt his teeth against his skin and shivered through another tsunami of a frisson.  “Yes,” he ground out, staring blindly at his own whitened knuckles.  “Ungh, John-”

John worked him hard and fast, nose pushing up under his bollocks, mouth frantic in the crack of him, tongue peremptory in its efforts to penetrate him, and Sherlock pushed down against it, sensuously indulging in the persistent work of John’s mouth.  He could feel nothing but firing nerves, the scrape of stubble and teeth, the humid flares of uncontrolled breath, the agile and vigorous organ within him deliciously preparing him for more to come.  Sherlock undulated his hips, swinging them from the pendulum of his spine, grinding down on John’s face, feeling each indent of a finger that would leave small circular bruises for the morning.  He was grunting and mumbling, saying nothing important, a litany of _John_ and _yes_ and _come on more, give me more_.  And John was bouncing him against his chin, fingers clamped around him, encouraging the crush of his hips.  All Sherlock could feel was slickness and fire, the opening hole that was sending sizzling messages to all the furthest points of his body, and spurts of precome were sliding down the column of his cock, glossy and fierce.

Sherlock pulled away before he could come, narrowing his eyes down at John’s red face and wild expression, and launched himself at the nightstand, where he had a bottle of oil waiting.  He resettled himself low over John’s stomach and dumped too much oil on his hands.  He didn’t care, just flung the bottle back and twisted to see, reached around to grab John’s cock, pulling it upwards from where it strained against his stomach, and smeared his hand clumsily along John’s shaft, curling tight around his girth, able to think only of how it would feel to be filled with it, split along its length, to have John’s fingers biting into his hips and grinding up into Sherlock with the same desperation Sherlock felt now.

John was already moving, grabbing Sherlock’s slicked hand and maneuvering it down the line of his back until it slid between Sherlock’s cheeks and slithered down to his opening.  Sherlock rose to his knees, keening in surprise when John pushed Sherlock’s own wetted fingers inside himself.  He threw his other hand forward, clawing for balance while his own fingers skated against his rim, slid easily inside his body, urged by John’s insistence, slipping into velvet heat.  Sherlock’s head fell forward to thunk against the meat of John’s shoulder as he flexed around them, growling, snapping his teeth into John while he traced the taut boundary of his rim, pushed back unthinking onto his own hand.  John held him tightly, hand wrapped around delicate metacarpals, furling them together, guiding Sherlock’s fingers in and out.

Sherlock felt explosive, sank his teeth too deep into John’s shoulder and shivered at the sudden metallic bloom in his mouth when he broke the skin.  John barked at him, and he let go immediately, glaring down at the man, fingers stuffed into his own arse, eyes dazzled by all the sparks going off behind his lids.  John pumped his hips up, and Sherlock gazed at the flex of his chest and the roll of his abdomen as he did so, marveling at the power between his knees, shuddering as the damp tip of John’s erection bounced up to brush against his thigh.  John’s fingers were beside his own, inexorably pushing inside as well, making themselves at home, and Sherlock’s mouth dropped open at the feel, stretched to his limits, strung out on sensation.

John twisted his hand in a half-circle that elicited a choking gasp from Sherlock before pulling his fingers out and wrapping them around the headboard.  “Sherlock,” he grunted, and his entire body was quivering where it touched Sherlock’s;  Sherlock could feel the bed vibrating with it.  “How do you want me?  What do you want?”

Sherlock didn't answer for a moment, too dazed to do more than snarl down at him. He pulled his own fingers free of the clutch of his arse, biting his lips against the drag, and gripped John's cock, angling it upward. "This," he panted. "Let me."

John froze, obedient and attentive, and Sherlock wiggled until he could feel the head of John’s cock pushing against his body, slipping until it barely nudged inside his hole.  He played with it there for a moment, more focused on his own sensations than on John, who was writhing and groaning beneath him, fingers clenched into fists around the headboard.  Sherlock maneuvered the cock back and forth against himself, rolled it in little circles, sank just enough to feel the stretch of it, but not enough to pop the whole head inside.  His back was arched so deeply he could feel the concavity of his stomach, the stretched muscles there a wall he wanted to distort with the full barbarian invasion of John’s cock, and he lifted his free hand to rub down the thrust of his slim chest, the ridge of his ribs and singing points of his nipples.

“Oh, god.   _Sherlock_ ,” John hissed, and he pushed up to penetrate, but Sherlock lifted away, not allowing it yet, only wanting the tease, completely absorbed in the sexual ballet of his own body.  He rubbed his hand against his skin again, hot and wet with sweat, entire body lubricated for grinding against the flesh of another.  His spine had never felt so loose, so flexible and strong, muscles all eager to strain with the sybaritic pleasure of movement, the intimate coordination of sex.

John picked up his rhythm, matched it, thrust his hips against Sherlock’s every downstroke, curled his hands around the whip of muscle that was Sherlock’s torso, rasping against over-sensitized skin.  He swept through the hair of Sherlock’s belly, pushing against the stretch under his skin, teased against his cock before slipping up to scratch across his chest, pinch and pull at his nipples, work bruises into the flowing metronome of his hips.

Little by little, Sherlock let himself fall lower, opening easily around John’s cock.  He found new moves to compliment the steel rod at his center, circling around it and rolling his shoulders, feeling the intrusion clear up to his throat.  He cried out, low and desperate, head dropped down to stare dizzily at John’s face, the creases next to his eyes and across his forehead, the intensity of his gaze, shining and avid, the glint of teeth in his opened mouth.

Finally Sherlock sank down all the way, weight fully resting across John's thighs, body throbbing around the cock inside him, thrumming with the rapid beat of his heart, a rhythm echoed by John:  he could feel it through his cock, see it in his neck, recognize it in his broken, panting breaths.

“Yes.  Sherlock,” John muttered, and for a moment, his eyes rolled back into his head before he pulled them back into focus.  “Good.  So good.  You- I want to-” He pulled up his legs, bent knees firmly against Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock could feel the rein he had over his instincts, the thrumming under his skin that demanded movement.

Sherlock sucked in air, a serrated gasp that echoed in the room, a vocalization of his shivers, his sweat, the rhythmic pounding of his veins and the burning of his cock.  John ran his hands up Sherlock’s thighs, rubbing the soft hairs there against the grain, inciting flashing frissons, and then curled his hands around, probing to feel where he and Sherlock were joined, to trace the strained skin of his rim, to stroke both of them at once, slick and hot in the darkness between their bodies.

“All right,” Sherlock choked.  “Yes.  All right.  Let me-” and he began to rise and drop, slow, feeling the movement inside himself, the pull and friction right at his hole, the contraction and lift of John, working in counterpoint, hands moving him gently, responsive to his direction, to the changes in his pace.  And slow was doing it for him.  Slow was stretching his skin until it was going to burst, teasing him into fragments and slivers, sluicing him with fire and ice.  Slow meant he could stare at John’s face, twisted in pleasure and concentration, watch the drops of sweat roll down to darken his hair, watch the grimace of his mouth, contorted in pleasure, and the stories and character behind his eyes.

“John,” Sherlock said, and his voice went high at the end, and he couldn’t stop it.  “John-” and the roiling drumbeat of his blood sank low in his abdomen, suffusing his sex, the stretch of skin leading to his hole, the flesh that was squeezing so tightly around John.  He had to close his eyes, felt scalding tears leak at the corners, bunch up under his lashes and fall to mingle with the sweat on his face.  “ _John_.”

John held him firm with one hand wrapped around his waist, guiding his movement as he rode John’s body, and his other hand shaped a fist around Sherlock’s cock, not too tight, hot and rough.  With that touch, Sherlock’s rhythm faltered, his body shaking and spasming, squirming in John’s grip, impaled on his cock.  He gasped, noises that sounded like sobs and cries and he could not have muffled for everything else in the world, sounds pouring out of him to echo his orgasm:  a continual string of release that tore itself from the roots of his soul to the basest guts of his body.  It pounded through him like waves, whipping him forward at last to fall against John’s sturdy chest, fingers clawed into his biceps, wet face pushed into his neck.

And while Sherlock shivered and undulated to his aftershocks, John’s implacable thrusting didn’t cease, stayed slow and steady for another minute until John cried out, “ _Sherlock!_ ”  His arms clenched around Sherlock so hard he couldn’t breathe, shaking and groaning, chest heaving in jerky gasps.  And Sherlock tightened back around him, used his whole body to hold on to John, so that he wouldn’t fly away.

They lay there for long moments, just catching their breath and enjoying the spreading languor of their bodies.  Neither moved, arms still holding tight, and Sherlock smiled briefly to himself when John softened enough for warm liquid to trickle out, dampening his arse and his thighs.  Sherlock closed his eyes, breathing deeply, the scent of John and sex warm and nuanced in his nose.

“Don’t ever leave,” Sherlock breathed out, thoughtless and stupid with it, giving himself away.

Before he could even tense up, find a way to salvage his admission of vulnerability, John turned his head to press his face into Sherlock’s hair, ran a thumb across the nape of Sherlock’s neck.  “I could never,” he whispered back, chest vibrating against Sherlock’s own.  “You don’t have to _try_ , Sherlock.  Don’t you know I’m wrapped around your finger?”

With that admission, Sherlock could relax into sleep, safe in John’s embrace.  He wanted to continue to explore control, to aim for John’s level of mastery.  But it was reassuring to know that John was both patient and devoted.  That he didn’t need to do anything more than he felt comfortable with.  Master, servant.  It was nothing more than simple vocabulary.  What had true meaning was the relationship unique between them, however they chose to define it, and however mutable it would be.  John was not the only one who was wrapped around a finger.  And Sherlock didn’t find that frightening at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.  This didn’t _entirely_ go the way I had predicted.  (Sorry, sorry!)  I’m going to blame that all on Sherlock, the obstreperous boy.  He simply _refused_ to be a domineering, sociopathic arsehole (which is totally what I had planned in the beginning.)  So it’s a happy ending after all.  I hope y’all enjoyed it, and weren’t too disappointed.  Snog wants all of you to go look up [_service dom_](http://dominantguide.com/126/what-is-service-topping/), so you can understand the new dynamic in their relationship.  Snog is awesome.
> 
> Also, I want to apologize for leaving so many comments from the last chapter unanswered until the last minute.  I was, um, drowning in procrastination.  I promise to do better this time.  And never think that I don’t read and appreciate your comments, because I do, I _do_.  They make me so happy, and I’m so grateful that you take the time, not only to read my story, but to let me know if you liked it.  Thank you, my darlings!  This is for you!
> 
> Oh, y'all are welcome to join me on [Tumblr](http://mojoflower.tumblr.com/) if you'd like. My blog is just about as nsfw as my stories, so that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. Happy Penis Friday, y'all!


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